The Codebook Affair
by m klindt
Summary: Sent on different ends of a mission to get a code book back to headquarters, another player in world domination is bringing UNCLE and THRUSH together to find a missing agent and protect their interests.  Part of my Lexi stories, but only at the very end.
1. Chapter 1

The Codebook Affair

By

M. Klindt

I don't own the characters from MFU, but like to play with them with the ones I did create. Thank you to my proof reader for helping with this story. This takes place before "The Kuryakin Affair"

Chapter One

Illya Kuryakin mischievously smiled to himself after he departed from the last train car in the central Munich station in West Germany and began the short walk to a small youth hostel by the University. He had just finished his last lone assignment for UNCLE by blowing up a THRUSH satrapy in Zurich. He practically had to walk the country side for two full days before getting on a trans-continental train to remain undetected.

His job was simple. Blow up their arms factory and blow it up he did. One of his greatest achievements of explosive denotation in his career and sadly, Napoleon had missed it, but not THRUSH. They may have not known who it, but they would be going down the short list of UNCLE agents with that level of skill and their whereabouts.

He couldn't even call in to confirm with Waverly the task was done personally. THRUSH might be monitoring the number of communiqués coming in and out of Europe from their satellite to local the perpetrator.

His biggest concern right now was to meet up with Napoleon in Rome in a less than a week's time. He was putting up the ruse that he and his pyromaniac partner were doing some surveillance work on THRUSH's Central office in Italy.

Illya snorted in merriment when he thought about his partner's overstated ego in his part of this mission and would've like to have seen how he kept up a conversation with taped recording of his blond partner's voice done before the mission. Half of the tapings had to be rerecorded because of the number of times they tried to goat and bait the other into making a mistake.

While Napoleon was cooling his heels in Italy, Illya was given another assignment by Waverly that felt like more of a treat than a job. He was to attend a symposium in Munich about inertial dampening for jet planes and rockets, pick up the security codes needed to operate a prototype at UNCLE headquarters, and then drive to Rome to pick up Napoleon to finish delivering the codebook to the right scientists.

Feeling a warm breeze brush across his face, Illya stopped his train of thought to look around the square. He loved downtown Munich in the early autumn. The trees brought in bright colors of fire to the stone buildings around the central marketplace.

The clock tower chimed in the town's center to a crowd of tourists, but only reminded the weary Russian how hungry he was and that he hadn't eaten since he'd boarded the train yesterday. Exhausted by his irregular schedule of the past few days, he'd slept the entire trip.

Making his way to the side of the large paved square, Illya let his nose and stomach guide him to a vender selling bread bowls of stew with thickly chopped vegetables.

Sitting on a bench, his backpack between his legs, he casually watched the tourists go as he relished the meal and the noontime sun warming his pale face.

There was no rush to check into the hostel or in at the University. Illya could do that any time before six tonight at the hostel and in the morning for the workshop. Until then he was free to savor the sights and sounds offered by the city of Munich.

"I wonder," Illya said softly, deep in concentration as to how he could get in contact with the person he'd like to spend some time with and if she was available. He sighed forlornly, pondering this idea a little longer while taking a long draw of his _Starbier_.

Finished with his meal, the agent returned his empty glass to the vender, thanked him, and continued on his way to the youth hostel a couple of blocks away. Gently, a tingling sensation began to grow at the base of his neck telling him that he was being watched.

Slowly and nonchalantly, he turned to stop at the booth of another vender selling trinkets to tourists and pretended to look at them with interest while scanning the street each way. He didn't recognize anyone that could be working for THRUSH or any military intelligence group he could think of. No one should know he's here.

Still on high sensory alert, Illya readjusted his rucksack, dropped his shoulders in the manner of a tired college student backpacking his way through Europe and continued his relaxed stroll to the hostel.

MFU/MFU

"Well Dieter," Dr. Fredric Rodeum growled in frustration to the man sitting opposite him at the small café table. "Does she meet your criteria?"

"Possibly." Dr. Dieter Klaus scrutinized a young blond lady in her early twenties wearing a simple dress and low heels and holding a leather book bag, looking through the wares of a street artist. "Although… I don't know she looks more like a tourist than a University student. Put someone on her tail. If she checks out, I really only need one more male to complete my experiment."

"Yes." Fredric nodded and bent his head to talk into the tiny transmitter in the palm of his hand for a moment. "I'll send Hans to follow her. There! What about that young man over there, nice clothes, dark hair, reading a chemistry textbook…"

"Auch, no," Dieter waved his colleague off with his own mash of common English and German words. "Too easy to break, he's already given in to society by the way he's dressed. I want a challenge; someone who will fight us tooth and nail against the device and afterwards help us with the rest of the others to their destruction."

"But he's just like the one you accepted yesterday." The second scientist argued. "How do you know he won't give you what you want? He's good looking, muscular, and seems very fit. All you want in a _male_ test subject."

"Yes, yes," Dieter said testily and took a gulp of his coffee. He wasn't ashamed of his known homosexuality with his lab partner and cousin. "I want someone…like him!"

"Who…where?" Fredric turned in his chair to see who his associate was staring at.

"There, on the bench with the beer…" Dieter set his cup down hard enough to send the dark fluid over its rim and almost jumped for joy as he vigorously pointed at the blond man with his back to them.

"Dieter! Sit yourself down." Fredric hissed to his over-excited friend and tugged at his arm. "You'll get us noticed. We're not supposed to be in Germany, let alone Munich. Keep acting like this and you'll frighten him away before you can get your hands on him."

Fredric now took the time to assess what had made his usual reserved partner so excited. At first he thought, from the back, the young, slim man could have been a woman, but when he looked closer, he could tell there was something unusual about him.

The man was not only of medium build, but shorter than most of the selected subjects Dieter was usually interested in. His hair was too long for society's standards; he wore a heavy, scratched-up, brown leather jacket; his pants showed signs of neglect around the cuffs and knees; and he wore flip flops rather than shoes. His regular shoes must be in the ragtag backpack that lay at his feet, he thought. When he turned his head to gaze up at the sun, the man was wearing circular wire-rimmed glasses at reflected enough of the light the scientist unable to see his eye color.

"He would barely meet our criteria…" Fredric shook his head. "For all you know, he lives on the streets and full of disease."

"I've a feeling about him and I want him, as my own personal test subject if I have to," Dieter firmly said. "I want him, whomever he is."

"Fine," Fredric said in resignation wanting to get the selection done. "I'll have Günter begin to track where he goes and see what he's doing. If he's here with someone it's a no go. No matter how much you want to experiment on him."

"Deal." Dieter smiled wolfishly, picked up his coffee, gulped the rest of it down, and slapped the table with excitement. "Just don't let Günter damage him too badly."

"Fine, now let's get back to the lab and get ready for our new visitors," Fredric said as he stood up, threw some money on the table, and preceded his friend out of the café.

MFU/MFU

"_Gutten tag,_" A blond college student greeted the disinterested registrar for the science symposium.

"_Ja, tag, namen?_" The older man didn't bother to look up from his list until he had grabbed his pencil and Illya had patiently waited for him to be ready.

"Ekkles, Kurt," Illya said with a relaxed smile on his face.

That was the name he and Mr. Waverly had agreed upon for his course registration. After checking into the youth hostel, he had met some college students who had invited him to go with them out with them and got lucky as Napoleon would phrase it.

If fact, he had gotten "lucky" last night and well into the morning. He learned a few more old German drinking songs and reacquainted himself with ones he already knew, he learned the popular phrases (always useful for undercover assignments) and then there was Mina, very soft and curvy bar maid. Not only did she help relieve his tensions but she had a bathtub at her apartment. It was the first time in several weeks that he had a chance to soak his whole body and he reveled in the hot water for an entire hour before leaving to register at the symposium.

The gruff man nodded his bent head in acknowledgement while he scanned the names on his list. He checked off the name, grabbed a packet of papers from the pile, tossed it to the younger man, and pointed in the general direction of the hallway to the right of him.

"_Danke,_" Illya said loud and strongly enough to have the rude man look up at him with an angry gaze for being reproached because of his manners by a mere student.

Before the man could respond, Illya took off down the hall with his study packet in hand and backpack slung over his shoulder with a devilish smirk on his face.

Walking a brisk pace, Illya had started to feel the hairs on the back of his neck rise again, when someone plowed into him from the right. He was thrown to the ground as his envelope of papers went skidding across the shiny linoleum floor while books and papers began to rain down on him.

Blinking to clear his eyes, he looked up in a slight daze. The florescent lights blinded him enough to only see a shadowy face of a female peer down at him as she lay draped across his legs. Quickly, he felt for his gun tucked away under his leather jacket to make sure it hadn't fallen out from the body-slam he'd taken from this young lady.

"Oh! I'm so sorry. I didn't look where I was going!" This skittish girl, her clothes disheveled apologized profusely, almost babbling as she climbed up off Illya's legs and began to gather the scattered sheets of paper. "It's just that Professor Meyer left to go meet with those two gentlemen privately before he collected his notes for this morning's lecture and I'm trying to find him. He seemed so nervous. I have to get these notes and books to him before…"

It only took Illya only a second to pull himself together and register that the girl was speaking English before he hopped onto his feet and began to help pick up the scattered books.

"It's all right. I'm fine, Miss?" Illya asked softly. Professor Meyer was the contact he was to meet. "You say that_ Herr_ Professor was talking with some men?"

"Paula, Paula Francis. Yes, but he didn't seem too happy about it. He was sweating more than usual." She continued rambling on distractedly while organizing the jumbled notes.

Illya whistled through his teeth; it was likely the two strangers were from THRUSH and he would have to change his plans. While considering possible actions, he looked around at the spilled books and noticed one seemed out of place from the rest. Before he could grab it, Paula picked it up the book and offered it to him. "Is this your book? I don't remember seeing this with the Professor's notes before."

"Let me see," Illya replied with suppressed excitement and took the book as he passed her a handful of notes. Examining the small, leather bound book towards him, he found it to be a collection of Shakespeare's sonnets. He held the book by the spine and gave it a tiny shake and was rewarded with the book filling open to a page made of a different type of paper.

Quickly glancing over to Meyer's assistant and seeing that she was still focusing on the professor's notes, he rapidly read the page, tore it out, and hid the paper inside a pocket of the lining of his jacket.

"No, sorry, this isn't my book." Illya stood up and held out the volume.

"Okay, weird," Paula mused as she accepted it and placed it on top of the hodgepodge pile of notes and books in her arms.

She was lost in her own thoughts and oblivious to what was going on around her. "If you're all right, I've got to go. Hope to see you at the symposium."

"Thank…you," Illya stammered with a deep chuckle to the departing whirlwind, who, had just tossed him up and left him stranded and bewildered. "At least I got what I came here for."

Quickly checking to make sure everything was in its place, Illya threw his backpack over his right shoulder and walked over to where his packet of papers had landed. As he bent down to pick up the manila envelope, he heard a man's shout as a door flew open and a man that Illya recognized as Professor Meyer strode from a secluded room with THRUSH agents Jules Otis and Adam Benson in tow.

Stuffing the packet into his backpack, Illya kept his head low and watched the known, medium-ranked, and not very pleasant agents, through his bangs. When they stopped to talk by the lecture hall door, he could hear the heightened level of fear in the Professor's rant and see the calm, knowing looks of the THRUSH agents who were determined to find out the location of the prototype plans and who had the security codes, no matter what it took.

Illya felt a pang of regret for the professor. He didn't know at what stage in the process the building the prototype of was in. He also knew the key codes were changed right before Meyer was to give the book to a UNCLE agent. He couldn't stay to help the man. He had to get the codes out of Germany and back to headquarters.

Slowly, Illya got up and turned on his heels with his back to what was happening down the corridor. He'd made it the door and pushed it open to freedom when he chanced a look back only to see Jules Otis look directly at him. The THRUSH agent punched his partner in the shoulder, pointed, and mouth the word "Kuryakin!"

Illya darkly grinned, gave him a gentry's salute, and darted out of the building when the two THRUSH agents started to make their way towards him. He had barely gotten out the door and down the steps before he noticed an acquaintance from last night's bar sitting on a bench waiting near the door.

"_Ekkles, kommen sie here!_" the man he vaguely knew as Günter called with a smile as he walked over, effectively blocking Illya from his planned route of escape.

Illya tried to wave him away and moved further off to the side of the building, out of direct sight of the entrance to the Science Department. He pointed to his watch and out to the street as if miming to Günter that he was too busy to talk.

Despite Illya's swift pace, Gunter quickly made his way to the blond UNCLE agent, quite determined to get his attention.

"_Nicht jehts Günter_," Illya growled out in frustration as the burly young man stepped in front of him, stopping him from getting away.

"Yes, now!" he shouted back in English and grabbed Illya by the arm, shoved him off balance, and pushing him closer to the opposite side of the street.

Surprised by the college student's abrupt change in personality, Illya was caught off guard and unprepared for his abrupt attack. Fighting to maintain his ground, while Günter kept pushing him backwards, he attempted to dig his heels into the smooth pavement to use this attacker's momentum against him.

Suddenly, a stabbing pain shot through Illya's neck, followed by a flush of heat down his arm. Taking his attention off of his struggle with Günter long enough to look over at his shoulder, he saw a syringe being pulled out of his neck by an unknown accomplice who had joined in the fight.

With a resigned sigh, the Section Two agent gave up struggling and looked back over to the two THRUSH agents watching from the top of the steps. Illya nodded to them in congratulations, they had won this part of the spy game. He still didn't know how they knew he was here in Munich.

Quickly, his strength began to falter; he lost control over his muscles and slumped against his attackers. Gunter and his friend started to pull him into a waiting van as Illya began to drift into unconsciousness.

"Hey!" Otis called out as he and his THRUSH partner stopped their mad dash down the steps and watched the non-descript vehicle speed off. "That's our UNCLE agent!"

MFU/MFU

Napoleon Solo made his third trip around the room. He knew that he'd have to make a decision soon. It was only the fourth day in this week-long mission and he was already bored stiff and had just run out of fresh tapes of Illya's voice for the THRUSH agents here in Rome to listen to.

Sitting down on the couch in the fourth floor efficiency apartment, he made a quick list of items he'd placed around the room to make it look like there were two UNCLE agents doing surveillance.

He'd made sure Illya's clothes were all over the floor, just like normal. _Well_, he chuckled to himself, _maybe not like always_. Illya would've said that despite his neat appearance, he was the one who lacked housekeeping skills. Napoleon loved to hear his partner defend himself in his indignant British tone with his nose up in the air. It's was almost worth irritating Illya just to hear what he'd say next to knock him out of his own high moral tower. It made stakeouts almost bearable for him. That and trying to put ketchup on everything his partner was going to eat.

Turning back to the window to peer out into the street below, Napoleon hitched his hip onto the sill and watched someone walk out of the building across the street, down the sidewalk, and through the door that he knew to be the entrance to Rome's THRUSH Central. Looking at his watch, the agent noticed it was about supper time and the skies were starting to darken into pinks and oranges.

"That makes the fourth person today to enter the office today," he said to his invisible partner when he tried to think of something to keep his listeners happy. Maybe he could pick a fight with his wayward partner and let THRUSH think that Illya was giving him the silent treatment. Suddenly, there was a sharp knock at the door.

Startled, Napoleon automatically reached for his gun. He hopped off the window sill and slowly made his way to the door; careful not to stand directly in front of it.

"Come now, Mr. Solo," a familiar Italian accented voice called out. "You've been trying to get our attention for four days now; did you think that we wouldn't finally come to visit?"

Taking a chance, Napoleon looked through the peep hole in the door and it confirmed the identity of the voice. It was the resident THRUSH CEA, Mario Delgado, along with five more of his cohorts.

With nowhere to go and no help except for his partner's voice, Napoleon decided to roll with it and try to bluff his way out of the apartment. Holstering his gun, he shot the sleeves of his jacket, and took a deep breath before opening the front door.

"Mario," Napoleon said cheerfully, all the while keeping an eye on his nemesis. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"I've come to check on you and your partner," the sleek man with a pencil-thin mustache said smoothly, brushing pass Napoleon, and heading straight from the table. "We haven't heard much from either of you and wanted to know if things were right with you two."

Before Napoleon could close the door, the rest of Mario's entourage blew past him and started to search the apartment, leaving one rather large and imposing man to stand watch at the door. He looked at this mountain of the THRUSH man for a split second and then casually walked over to where Mario had placed a paper bag on the table and was pulling out its contents.

With a feigned sense of confidence, Napoleon sat down in one of the kitchen table's worn chairs, crossed his legs, and surveyed the action in the small apartment. He sat quietly, not adding to the conversation or trying to stop the THRUSH grunts from ransacking the room.

Delgado, for his part, continued to set the table, going to the cupboard for two chipped plates and a pair of two hazy wine glasses, and finally began to look for napkins while he kept his back to Solo.

"So, Napoleon," Delgado began again as he pulled another drawer open and keeping the conversation light. "Where is Illya?"

"He's stepped out. He may be gone for quite a while," Napoleon said indifferently, waiting for the man's reaction. "He's found a very lovely girl who likes jazz and they are making a night of it while I waste away here, but I thought," he shrugged lightly, "what the heck, he deserves an evening off once and in a while…"

Delgado turned to look at him, leaned back to rest his elbows onto the tall countertop, and played with the napkins in his hands. The man's features mirrored Napoleons: dark, sleek hair and eyes; firm, tone body; excellent choice of clothes from the best stores; and intelligence enough to know how to play the spy game for so long.

The two men regarded each other for a few long moments, until one of the THRUSH agents destroying the room came over to Delgado, whispered in his ear, and negatively shook his head. With a sigh, Delgado nodded to the door and the underling motioned for everyone, but for the mountain man to leave the apartment.

"Oh, Napoleon," Mario sighed in mock sadness with a hint of frustration mixed in. "I was so hoping Central was wrong and Illya was indeed here with you."

"Why is that," Napoleon asked, watching him begin to uncork a wine bottle, both items in which he brought with him.

"It would have saved both of us a lot of time and effort." Twisting to grab the first wine glass, he poured wine in to it, and handed it to Solo who nonchalantly placed in front of him. "Your little bastard sidekick has cost my employers a great deal of money in the last few days. They want something in return and you're going to help us find him."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Napoleon said coolly, taking the offered plate of food from Delgado. He set it down by his still untouched wine.

"Oh, but you do!" Delgado crowed like the THRUSH bird he is. "Otis and Benson saw him today in Munich, just this morning in fact. He was so rude not to wait for them at the University steps..."

"What can I say?" Napoleon smiled unapologetically, closely watching enemy take a sip of wine and a bite of food. "His manners are atrocious and he never sits still…"

"Ah, but you don't know half of it, do you Napoleon," Delgado challenged between bites and wiped his curl of a smile with a napkin. "Don't worry; I haven't poisoned your food or vine. I actually need your help. I mean, what good would you be to me dead?"

"My help?" Napoleon asked, picking up the glass and examining the wine for clarity and bouquet while he waited.

"Yes." Delgado pointed his spaghetti-laden fork at him and then popped into his mouth. Swallowing, he continued. "You see, while my associates were trying to catch up with your partner, they witnessed his abduction."

"Abduction? By someone else," Napoleon asked. He took a tentative swallow of the wine, but couldn't savor it with the news Mario was telling him. "Okay, who's this someone else?"

"We don't know and that's why we need your help." He leveled his gaze at Napoleon. "We want you to find your partner so we can obtain the security codes to that little project of Dr. Meyer's. Do you even know what he's working on?"

"Mr. Waverly won't allow it." Napoleon said firmly and set the glass down.

"I wouldn't bet money on that if I were you." The other man mumbled between bites.

Just as Napoleon began to laugh out loud at the THRUSH man's absurd comment his communicator started to bleep. Cursing to himself, he reached into his coat pocket for the pen that was near his gun.

"Careful, Napoleon," Mario cautioned and put his fork down.

"Always," Napoleon replied as he slowly pulled out his hand to reveal only his blaring pen.

Turning the top of the communicator over, he engaged the microphone. "Solo here."

"Mr. Solo," the gruff voice of his superior rang through. "I'm afraid our game of cat and mouse is up so to speak. May I assume Mr. Delgado is there with you?"

"Yes sir, he is and has told me that I'm to work with him and THRUSH to find Mr. Kuryakin," Napoleon stated in a grim tone.

"Yes, it appears right now THRUSH has us over the preverbal barrel with innocent lives at stake. Their agents have Dr. Meyer, the blueprints of the prototype. They're threatening to blow up an entire city block in three different major cities if we don't find Mr. Kuryakin and turn him over to them with those security codes to translate the key in a week's time."

"Any clues on who took Mr. Kuryakin?" Napoleon rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and mumbled a prayer that he didn't kill his partner when he saw him again.

"Not yet. I've dispatched my closest agent to the scene to gather what information he can. You will go to Munich with Mr. Delgado and talk with his agents about what they witnessed. I have his superiors' assurance that you will be unharmed during this joint mission."

"And what of Mr. Kuryakin and his safety when we find him," he asked, eying his table mate. Delgado smiled with all the charms of a snake about to devour its prey.

"That is being worked out as we speak," Waverly replied in angry tones that made both men cringe. "Find him, Waverly out."

Not at all happy with how events were turning out, Napoleon sighed and made a mental note to not-so-kindly remind his absent partner about getting into so much trouble when he was not around to watch his back.

Looking down at the table, he noticed that Mario was nearly finished with his meal and his own plate was untouched. Suddenly, he'd lost his appetite. Instead, Napoleon finished the rest of his wine in a gulp and wiped the last drop off his lip with his napkin.

"Tell me," Napoleon said so softly that Mario barely heard the words.

"I have a theory," Mario began, understanding what his counterpart wanted to know. "My superiors have an idea of who blew up our munitions depot in Zurich. They want to make an example of that Section Two agent to prove that THRUSH's assets can't easily be destroyed; even if it takes threatening your 'Old Man' to get what they want in restitution. But, I don't this in coming from THURSH Central as a whole. Why the big effort now? I think it's more of an attempt at personal vengeance by the head of THURSH Northeast, Sven Vander Meer."

"But then, who besides us would kidnap Kuryakin? This is the what and who our bosses are most concerned with, not that little commie shit you work with …well except for Sven, of course."

"Of course," Napoleon said thoughtfully and finally took a bite of the offered meal. "I guess I have a new partner for this mission. When do we leave for Munich? Shall we meet at the airport?"

"Sorry, Central doesn't trust you that far, Napoleon." Mario grunted and poured himself and Solo each another glass of wine. "We leave at six in the morning and I'm to stick to you like glue until then. So do you prefer the couch or the right side of the bed? I'm not your fairy blond boyfriend and sleep in the nude. I only have sex with those who have one less body part than me."

"Mario," Napoleon said coolly, hiding his growing distain for the insults being slung at his absent partner. "I'm more than happy to throw around all those frequently repeated innuendos about my partner's and my sexual habits, but if you want to live through the night, I suggest we call a truce until Illya can personally confirm or deny your colorful assumptions you have about him in person. He's quite able to defending himself against your rather dull and boring attempts at humor. I, for one, would like to talk about the mission and plans to find out what we can."

Mario, after deciding that he wasn't going to anger Napoleon by his tart remarks, nodded in agreement and then raised his glass in salute. "To finding your golden boy and whomever took him."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

At first, Illya was just cold while his mind continued to float in the calm black waters of a drug-induced sleep. Then the shivering began to pull him into the light consciousness of a chilly sleeper searching for a blanket, but his arms wouldn't move.

Fear of the unknown jolted him awake as he forced his body in the trained stillness of faked sleep while he took in some of surroundings. The agent lightly twisted his wrists and felt the soft lambs' wool under the rough edge of the thick leather restrains buckled tightly around his wrists and similarly discovered his ankles shackles as well.

Illya shivered again when the cool breeze of the ventilation system blew over his bare chest. With a slight shift of his body he thanked his captors for at least letting him keep his underwear this time and the lock pick hidden in the waist band.

"Hey, Dieter!" The voice of a man Illya had known as Günter's rang throughout the room. "Your Prince Charming is starting to wake up."

Now knowing that he was being watched and would be unable to have a chance to escape at the moment, Illya opened his eyes. After giving his eyes time to adjust to the brightness of the room, he looked around.

He was in some type of cell with three solid walls and one of bars. The walls and ceiling were white-washed, cement bricks with what looked like a medical exam light hanging from the ceiling. The bed to which he was strapped seemed more like a raised gurney with metal side rails and a painfully thin mattress pad underneath him.

From behind the bars, Günter was watching him with an arrogant smirk on his face. He was dressed like an orderly with blinding white shoes, pants, and medical smock. Silently, Illya turned his face back to the ceiling and calmly closed his eyes.

"_Stupid!_" he chastised himself silently. "_Napoleon is going to have a field day teasing me that I couldn't complete a simple assignment without him to hold my hand."_

The noise of the door unlocking and opening alerted Illya and he took a breath in to prepare for whatever was coming. He slowly turned his head to the door and watched two men dressed in surgical scrubs walk into the cell. One was carrying intravenous supplies.

Illya inwardly rolled his eyes. He hated THRUSH drugs; they gave him the worst headaches.

"_Gutten tag._" The one carrying the medical supplies smiled cheerfully. "_Wie gehts_?"

How am I? Illya remained silent as he watched the tall, portly man grab at the IV pole attached to the stretcher and hung the bottle of fluid. He kept his face blank and didn't react.

"Dieter, control yourself or I won't let you start the IV," the other man said sternly as he rolled a chair to Illya's other side and sat down.

In his late forties, he was of European decent, possibly pure German Illya thought, but he spoke American English with an American accent. He waited patiently with a thoughtful look on his face, letting Illya shrewdly look at him.

Dieter took this time to snake another rolling stool to sit at the opposite side of their captive University student and set the rest of his medical supplies on the edge of the stretcher.

"I would have not selected you for our little project, but you've turned out to be very interesting to us," the man in charge began with a sweet, deadly tone. "You barely meet our height and weight requirements for our male subjects, although you're a match for all the other physical characteristics we desire. Dieter!" he snapped

Just as the man shouted, Illya felt a hand begin to stroke his hair by his ear and jerk away to look at the disappointed man with a half- raised hand.

"Sorry, Fredric," the man blushed and smiled apologetically. "I couldn't help it. Look at him. The blond hair, the well defined body, and those eyes, like London blue sapphires…"

"We need to talk to him first," Fredric cautioned, "After the procedure, then you can have your way with him if he survives."

"Yes, Fredric," Dieter said with a renewed eagerness and a tiny lick of his lips.

"What was I saying?" Fredric asked absently to draw Illya's attention back from Dieter who was pointedly sitting on his hands to keep still. "Oh yes, we'd sent Günter over there to follow you and he reported that you were here in Munich by yourself and very fond of German bar maids I might add."

Still not uttering a word, all Illya did was shrug his shoulders the best he could. What made him more nervous than simply being tied to a bed in a hidden THRUSH satrapy was the unpredictability of Dieter's attraction to him and this procedure Fredric was alluding to.

"What was even more surprising is that you had a couple of someones chasing you already when Günter was lying in waiting to bring you here. Hans even had to get out of the van and help him. He's a little upset that you put up a good enough fight that he couldn't easily knock you out like he was able to do the with the other test subjects."

Again, Illya said nothing, but took a moment to look past Dieter and focus on Günter whose gaze was hard and sharp as he nodded a challenge to the slight UNCLE agent.

"We didn't think anything of it until he brought you here to our facility." Again, Fredric waited for Illya to turn back to him before he continued. "When we stripped you and searched your clothing, we found several interesting items in them."

Fredric sat back in the chair and pulled out Illya's gun, displaying the initial of 'K' on its butt. He turned it over in his hands as Illya watched intently. It was odd that THRUSH wouldn't know by now who he was and that the P-38 was an UNCLE's standard issue special.

"Then there are your scars," Fredric said as more a general statement then a question. He carefully put the gun back into his coat pocket. "Gunshots, knifings, burns, whippings; my, you've been busy a young man…Who do you work for? Never mind, you probably won't tell me."

Illya shook his head.

"Well, since you have decided to remain mute, I will tell you what you have stumbled into with our experiment." Fredric nodded to Dieter who picked up a rubber tourniquet to stretch over Illya's secured bicep. "You have the distinct pleasure of aiding us to bring the "_New World Order of the_ _Fourth Reich_" back on track once the VIRUS is in place on a select few recruits to complete_ der Fuhrer's _mission of world domination."

"Nazis!" Illya hissed out, his mind flashing back to scenes of seeing both his father and his friend Alexana's father leaving Kiev to join the war against those bastards only to be discovered and murdered by a mole in the Soviet government. Of being sent to a concentration camp with Alexana and her mother to work in the lab making morphine. Of being saved by her mother from being given to German parents because of his looks and small size, making him appears younger than he was.

"Yes," Fredric boasted. "Our fathers' were part of his personal research team. When invasion of the Fatherland was inevitable, the scientists and their families were sent to the United States to continue their great strides in technologies the party had begun. We've completed what they started with our VIRUS device."

"Device? Virus?" Illya asked, having given up his vow of silence with the shock of his abductor's identity, but he wondered if they were involved with THRUSH, and simply hadn't mentioned their name yet.

"Yes, I designed it," Dieter chimed in as he swabbed the inside crook of Illya's elbow with rubbing alcohol. "Vertebral Influencing Radio Uploading System, a.k.a… the V.I.R.U.S. device It's implanted between the first and second vertebrae to access the spinal cord and electrical leads are then tunneled up to the brain to control the subject by radio remote. It's quite effective after the subject gets past the pain threshold and submits to the controlling impulses. Not all who are implanted survive, but I think that you, Mr. Ekkles, will be our greatest proof of how we German's are far superior to any other race on this planet."

"You, Dieter, wouldn't be a welcome member to your _Fuhrer's_ ideals with your particular desires that you've demonstrated quite openly," Illya gloated, grimacing as the hollow needle found its mark into one of his visible veins.

"You're talking about the previous Reich." Dieter frowned in frustration to the old arguments and anger while he taped down the tubing. "Besides, I'm a racially pure German, faithful, and a much needed part of our rightful return to power. I have a special dispensation and if you check your Roman history, upon which the Nazis modeled themselves, homosexuality was acceptable in certain circles…"

"Like the Roman Empire, Germany's empire fell and never recovered because of its policy of exclusion and death from those protecting it, no matter how dedicated or talented that person may be." Illya declared sternly and watched the reaction he evoked from the now visibly upset man as he was forming his spiteful retort.

"Your accent, Kurt," Fredric interrupted the volley of statements between the two men smoothly. "I hear a little British and Eastern Europe. Maybe you're not as pure as we thought you were, but that will change shortly."

"I am not alone," Illya said in a soft, threatening tone, changing the subject. "My absence will not be over looked and others will come to find me."

"Let them." Fredric smiled darkly. "We're no longer in Munich anymore and it won't stop us from implanting you with our device. We'll be able to get you to tell us who you work for and then you can help us bring them to their knees."

"_Gutten nacht, Herr Ekkles_," Dieter said with a broad, foreboding smile on his face as he injected the IV tubing with a syringe full of sedative.

Quickly, Illya's body and mind began to drift back into a warm, unfocused state of awareness. The last things he could sense was the movement of the gurney and the hush voices of the two mad scientists start to fade away.

MFU/MFU

Napoleon Solo got on the plane from Rome to Munich feeling very tired. After his call from Waverly, he and his temporary THRUSH counterpart, Mario Delgado, ran through the short lists of witnesses and facts of Illya Kuryakin's last mission and abduction. His meal was cold and it was already getting late.

He was a guest of THRUSH and felt that he dared not sleep or lower his guard despite the reassurance he was given by Delgado. The same high-ranking THRUSH agent who, if they weren't both looking for Illya, would've loved to kill him on any given day.

Of course that thought didn't haunt Napoleon near as something else as he lay quietly on the couch. It was Delgado's snoring, he reasoned angrily. At least, Illya was a quiet sleeper. The man sawing logs on the narrow bed could shake the glass out of the windows. _It's going to be a long night_, Napoleon thought as he tried pushing away images of his friend being taken and tortured.

After a few restless hours, Napoleon's nerves were shot and he got up, trying to shake off the tension of feeling helpless, and started to pack his and Illya's clothes. So intent was he in his task that he hadn't noticed that Delgado had stopped snoring and began to watch him intently.

Napoleon stared stonily back at Mario for a moment and then continued on with folding his partner's shirt. All the other man did was to chuckle, turned over, and go back to sleep. Napoleon went back to tidying up and began to silently list all the paperwork he was going to make Illya do as punishment for having to work with Delgado.

"Wake up, Solo." Delgado shoved him awake in the airplane's seat. "We're going to land in thirty minutes."

"Thirty minutes," Napoleon mumbled, he hadn't realized he had fallen asleep on the plane. "What time is it?"

"It's roughly ten in the morning." Mario said. "You should've gotten some sleep at the apartment. You've slept for most of the trip. I woke you up so you could get cleaned up before we land."

Clearing his dry throat, Napoleon nodded to the overly helpful THRUSH agent, got up, and went to the lavatory to freshen up.

Returning to sit by Delgado, Napoleon was greeted by an intently smiling man. "I ordered you a coffee."

Moments later, a voluptuous, dark-haired beauty set down two steaming cups of coffee and warm pastries. She smiled warmly at the two men and talked pleasantly to Delgado before returning to the galley kitchen.

"Gratzie," Mario smoothly said to the treating form and picked up a napkin. "Enjoy, while we have time, Solo."

"So, tell me, Mario," Napoleon asked with genuine curiosity after taking a sip of hot coffee. "What's your deal, why THRUSH?"

"Why UNCLE," the man shot back. "I'll tell my story of how I became a THRUSH agent if you tell me why you became an UNCLE agent. Although, I can't for the life of me think of why you would ever want to be partnered with that Russian runt is beyond me."

"He grows on you, like a fungus, and it's smarter to have Illya as your partner than your enemy. You should know that by now. You're just lucky that Waverly can keep him reined in as much as he does. I wouldn't want to be around if he ever lost his sense of humanity." Napoleon involuntarily shuddered at the thought.

"Yes, I'm often surprise that Central doesn't try harder to recruit him," Mario agreed honestly. "But, enough of the blond freak; now spill. Why did the great Napoleon Solo join UNCLE?"

"They have a great retirement plan," Napoleon said jovially. "If I make it, I know that I won't have to face having to decide what kind of death is waiting for me."

"Yes, that's one of the drawbacks in working, but I don't intend on retiring like my colleagues." Mario said with a smirk on his smooth face and raised his cup to his lips. "Go on…"

"I sort of fell into the job, so to speak." Napoleon shrugged as he wiped the pastry's dried sugar off his fingers and onto the napkin. "My father was a staunch military man from the Second World War who didn't know how to handle civilian life and drank to make up for it.

"He would take his frustrations out on me and my mother, God rests her soul, but had issues too. She was used to being the one in charge of the family while the old man was away and couldn't play the happy housewife after he came back.

"I ran off to join the fight in Korea to get away from their fighting, the drinking, and my spot in the middle between them." Napoleon reflected back on the day he'd made his ultimate decision to leave his parent's unhappy home at the age of sixteen. "I lied about my age to join , I found out I have a special nack for surviving. I met a man named Alexander Waverly, who saw past my snotty teenage front and took me under his wing. I wasn't very surprise to hear that my parents died in a car crash because of my dad's drinking while I was in college. The one Waverly had sent me to after the war.

"My fiancée, ironically, got killed by stray hunter's bullet while we were sitting in my car discussing our future. And the rest, as they say, is history."

"That wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped for." Mario sighed in mild disappointment.

"And what of you, Mr. Delgado?" Napoleon raised his cooling cup of coffee to his nemesis. "Are there any demons in your closet that set you towards wanting to inflict world domination on the masses by being a member of THRUSH?"

"Unfortunately, no, Mr. Solo." Mario softly smiled more to himself than the UNCLE agent. "I'm the second son of a family with deep roots to one of the biggest mafia organizations of Italy. I can trace a history of honor and violence from Pope Alexander to the present day families of the vine country.

"My brother and I were expected to run the family, but you only need one manager and since he was older, I chose to sell my skills to THRUSH. I plan one day to return and take over the family business when I feel that I'm no longer an asset to my employers."

"Will they let you go so easily?" Napoleon asked with interest.

"Probably not," Delgado's smile got bigger and darker with a hint of renewed determination. "But, I have my methods of persuasions as you will recall, Napoleon. I gave you a small taste of them last year, before you and that Red Houdini escaped from my colleagues. They didn't live long after that mistake."

"Yes, I vaguely remember," Napoleon said with a causal wave of his hand. Yes, he remembered the excruciating pain and the long recovery time he and Illya endured after they were lucky enough to get out of Delgado's trap alive because of the amateur's mistake made by the junior THRUSH agents. Delgado, himself, had been answering a high priority call from Central in another room and wasn't there to stop them.

"You are a lucky man, Napoleon Solo," Delgado stated firmly with a small tip of his head and hard glint in his dark eyes.

Napoleon only nodded in agreement. He would've said more, but the two men were interrupted by the stewardess coming to collect their coffee cups and trash while the plane was making its final descent into the Munich airport.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Lisa Mortensen walked into the detention area of the hidden headquarters of the New World Order of the Fourth Reich with a sense of anticipation. She had received an interesting message from Fredric about Dieter's unusual attraction to an experimental subject that he just had to have.

Being in charge of security and enforcement, it was her job to be suspicious of those who might be trying to stop them as they gained support to their ultimate goal of taking over the world. She knew which law enforcement agencies could be bribed and the ones they would have to crush in order to succeed.

Their organization was just starting to become a force to be reckoned with in Europe, but they still had to be careful. She knew they had to remain hidden from the scrutiny of the powerful eyes of UNCLE and THRUSH a little longer, until they were better entrenched to survive the struggle for world dominance.

Now, they had someone, taken by chance, who could either help them or destroy all that they had worked for since the death of _der Furher_. Lisa let that thought roll around in her mind as she ran her strong hands through her short blond hair. She wore it in the current fashion of the day, but had taken the time to change into her officer's uniform instead of the skirt and sweater she'd put on this morning. Like the others in the secret base, she was from the US and they had chosen West Germany to gather test subjects of pure blood to complete the final phase of testing their ultimate device to control those who would lead the masses.

"_Tag_, Günter." Mortensen nodded to the man sitting on the chair by the wall of heavy metal bars that formed the wall of a prison cell. "Is that the man who has Dieter drooling like an idiot?"

"_Ja_," the unimpressed young man said as he continued to watch him. "He's been out of surgery for about an hour. Here, this is what was found on him."

Mortensen looked at the small pile of items in a box on the table and pulled out the gun. It was a well balanced Walther P-38 with the initial "K" on the well-balanced pistol grip. "Could it be?"

After setting the gun down, she scrounged around deeper into the tattered rucksack and found two pieces of a silver pen. "Oh, shit! He has to be an UNCLE agent."

Calming her now shaking hands, Lisa pocketed the communicator pieces and turned back to Günter, who was now watching her closely. "I need to see this Kurt Ekkles. Find Klaus and Rodeum for me. I want their report now. I'll be in my office."

The man rose to attention, saluted her with a raised arm, and exited the room. He left his superior officer staring through the prison bars at the person wrapped in sheets while the dim light reflecting off the white walls created an eerie background glow.

MFU/MFU

"Madam." Gunter broke into Mortensen's train of thought as she sat in her office with the UNCLE agent's processions spread out on her desk. "They are ready for you."

"_Ja, ja_, I'm coming." Lisa nodded absently, but didn't lift her head as she stared at Kuryakin's gun in her hands, put it down, and got up to follow the bulky henchman back into the detention cell where the angelic-looking UNCLE agent slept. "I knew it."

The two scientists had just finished checking his vitals and incision site as she stopped next to them. She hated that she and the new Nazi organization were so dependent on these two scientists to deliver the world to them, especially by that _ausarten_ Dieter. He would be the first to go once this experiment had proven a success and that success was all that matters right now.

"Gentlemen," Mortensen addressed the two men with a less than patient tone while looking down at the well-known UNCLE agent. "Report."

"Madam," Fredric started with a nervous clearing of his throat. Despite her slightly smaller size and gender, she was to be feared. "Dieter observed this man going to the University and had to have him in our experiment. He was staying alone at the youth hostel and Günter was able to overtake him outside the University with Han's help. We discovered that he was more than what he appeared when we searched his clothes and bag. There was a gun and he's riddled with scars and burns…"

"And you have no clue to who he might be?" She asked patiently.

"Well, we know that he is not Kurt Ekkles…"

"You think?" Mortensen snapped with sudden fierceness. "Do you two have any idea who this is?"

"Oh….," Dieter stammered as he took an unconscious step back. "No…we were just doing what was required by the Order and our experiment. I couldn't tell he wasn't German. Look at him, blond hair and when his eyes are open, the deepest blue. And look how young he is; dressed like every other university student in Munich…"

"But he's not a college student is he," she rasped out in tightly, controlled anger. "This is Illya Kuryakin, an agent for the United Network of Command for Law and Enforcement."

"Who," Dieter asked in confusion while Fredric's eyes grew big and he shook his head in amazement.

"One of the major policing agencies in the world," Lisa said and bared her teeth at him, trying to remind him who they were fighting against. "The one we are to destroy, along with THRUSH as soon as we have fully developed that little device of yours."

"I don't believe you," Dieter said in astonishment. "Who is this Kuryakin?"

"One of the top enforcement agents UNCLE has to offer." Mortensen began to relay the information she had on the sleeping man, checking to make his restraints were secure. "He and his partner, Napoleon Solo, have given THRUSH a run for their money for years as they've tried for world domination. He can speak several languages, has a doctorate in Quantum Mechanics, and is a deadly adversary whether the fight is with weapons or hand to hand."

"Wow!" Dieter said and let out his held breath. "Just by looking at him, you would never know."

"That is why he's so deadly," Mortensen said slowly, an idea forming in her mind while she absently brushed Kuryakin's baby-soft hair from his broad forehead. "But, maybe we can use him to our advantage. Dr. Rodeum, do you guarantee your device will work on him? He could be a means to an end for our little cause."

"Madam?" Fredric questioned with a sharp glance as Dieter slowly nodded. "What do you require of him?"

"Obviously, this man will be missed sooner than later." Lisa said, stroking the communicator pen through her uniform pocket. "Maybe we can let him be found and he can help us eliminate our competition for us. They wouldn't know what hit them…When will he be ready?"

"Let's find out." Dieter nodded and pulled out a small black remote from his pocket and spoke into it. "Open your eyes."

Kuryakin's eyelids fluttered before opening with an unfocused stare up at the ceiling.

"This is an excellent start," Dieter said, waving his hands in front of Kuryakin's eyes to see if he would track the movement. "He's still fighting for control. Fascinating, most of our subjects would be screaming in pain or at least moaning when the voice amplifier is initiated. This man has endured a lot of torture."

"How long will this take," Mortensen asked with curious interest in the slight trembling running throughout the agent's stiff body.

"He's already advanced through the first adaptation phase; let's see if we can jump to the next. Fredric, be ready with the tranquilizing gun. Now, let's release his restraints…"

With reservations, Lisa watched Dieter unbuckle the cushioned, leather bonds and Fredric held a dart gun in his shaking hands. At first, everyone held their breath and waited for the deadly agent to make a move.

"Sit up, Mr. Kuryakin."

In a flash, Illya's hand flew up and grabbed Dieter's neck with a crushing grip. His expression was blank, his eyes cold and hard.

With surprising calmness, Dieter didn't struggle against the grip while he awkwardly brought the small black remote up to his dusky lips, "Let go of my neck, now."

After a few seconds of continued pressure on the portly man's neck, Illya let go, his arm dropping back onto the gurney. His haunting, ice-blue eyes were not seeing or caring about the physical rush of relief Dieter felt when he could finally breathe again. Illya slowly raised his head and torso off the bed, propping up on his elbows

"Thank you, Illya." Straightening up and turning toward Mortensen, he continued, "Give me a day and I might have him holding a gun and doing our bidding."

"Good," Mortensen said with a dark grin, her mind racing as to which she should take down first, UNCLE or THRUSH.

With Kuryakin's help, she could do both and have each blame the other for it. That is, if she played her cards right and she now had an unexpected ace in the hole. A nasty Russian spy, who was now under their control, hers after Dieter had provided the pathway. And finally, she could kill Dieter now that Fredric knew how to do the procedure and could perform the process on the next subject.

"What now, Madam?" Fredric nervously asked, still pointing the dart gun a Kuryakin.

"Help Dr. Rodeum get him ready to follow my orders. Dieter will start preparing for his partner, so that when we ensnare him in our trap. We'll implant him with the device as well." Mortensen turned toward the door as she pulled the two pieces of Illya's communicator from her pocket. "I have to make a phone call."

MFU/MFU

Napoleon and Mario had gotten off the plane and were picking up their checked bags from baggage claim. They were to meet with Otis and Benson to see if they had found out any more about Illya's disappearance.

_Bleep, bleep, bleep…_

Stopping off to the side of the busy airport hallway, Napoleon discreetly pulled his communicator pen out of his coat's breast pocket and engaged it as Mario stood in front of him. On the inside, Napoleon cringed at the THRUSH man closeness, although he didn't show it.

It took a while for him to feel comfortable with another man that physically close to him with a man he didn't trust. Illya was different, his presence wasn't threatening to him, because he trusted him like a brother, almost instantly, after their first rocky mission together where Illya had saved his life by playing his jealous gay lover. Without having to ask, he knew that Illya was more knowledgeable in more "worldly" expressions of sex with both male and female partners than he was, but what he lacked in the exotic, he made up in quantity and quality in seduction of the fairer sex.

"Solo here," he said, refocusing his thoughts on the mission instead of his partnership with Illya.

"Mr. Solo and Mr. Delgado, we have just received a distress call from Mr. Kuryakin's communicator."

"Were you able to triangulate his location?" Solo immediately interrupted.

"Yes, but we were unable to talk directly to him. His distress signal was the only lead that we were able to pick up and we tracked it to the business district in Koblenz, northwest of Munich. I've arranged a car for you and Mr. Delgado. You are to coordinate with the local THRUSH and UNCLE agents in Western Germany to get you to Mr. Kuryakin's location and find out if this a call for assistance or a trap. See to it, Mr. Solo and report to me when you get there. Waverly out."

"Yes, sir," Solo said after the communication clicked off. He glanced at Delgado with a stern and calculating grimace. Then he turned the tip of his pen over and stuffed it back into his jacket.

"Is that old lion always so abrupt with his top men?" Mario asked softly.

"Yes. We are, after all, all expendable." Deep in concentration, Napoleon pressed his lips into a hard straight line. "Well, Mr. Delgado, it seems that we are in a game of cat and mouse and we must find the prize."

"And that prize would be your lover?" Mario raised his trimmed eyebrows high to bait Napoleon further.

"No," Napoleon sighed tiredly. Evidently they were back to square one with the THRUSH agent muttering insults and innuendos. "The prize is the identity of the person or persons trying to push THRUSH out of its number one spot of those we have to prevent from taking over the world. Illya is just a bonus."

"Huh," Mario grunted out, momentarily stunned and speechless by the simple response Napoleon had given him.

"Now," Napoleon said as he smiled brightly, pushing himself past Delgado with a sweeping motion. "Let's go meet your and my fellow agents so we can learn where in Koblenz we may find my partner. If you're lucky, he might let you live with only you arms pulled out of their sockets."

"Not if I can help it." Mario shot back while he quickened his trot alongside Solo fierce pace. "I still have to deliver the bastard to Sven for that ammo explosion in Zurich."

MFU/MFU

Fredric Klaus knocked on the office door of his superior. He hated working with Lisa Mortensen with a passion. She was like most high-ranking officials, stiff in principles and unyielding in changes to her orders. What caused him the most stress being around her was that he knew that his friend and lab partner's life was soon coming to an end and Dieter, to an extent, knew it too.

Because of his open homosexuality, Mortensen wouldn't simply just let him stay hidden in this research facility; she planned to utilize his scientific knowledge and then kill him just like the black widow spider she was.

Fredric's only way to keep his friend alive was to delay the inevitable as long as he could and hope for the best. Their fathers were close cousins and their sons had grown up together in the same small town. There was no way out of the New World Order for either Dieter or Fredric, because of their families and what they knew.

For awhile, Fredric believed fervently the philosophy of the Nazis, but now, here with this evil woman, he had more doubts that assurances. The saddest thing for him was Dieter's ardent belief that the New Order would eventually accept him.

"_Kommen Sie,_" a soft, firm voice called out behind the door.

"Madam," Fredric opened the door and cleared his throat. "I would like to address certain concerns over Mr. Kuryakin."

"Concerns, Fredric?" Lisa lifted her face to him. She noticed that one of his eyes was bruised around the edges. "What kind of concerns?"

"Basically, my concern in controlling him," Fredric said with a pinched face. "He's slow to accept orders, unexpectedly lashes out still after a full day's intense training, and Dieter has to increase the frequency of the threshold four times."

"Interesting." Lisa leaned back in her stiff wooden chair. She brought her folded hand up to rest her chin on them. "Yes, I've seen how he trembles, but you had him dress himself without too much delay. Has he said anything to you?"

"No," Fredric said hesitantly, hoping to portray more confidence than he had. "When we've ordered him to talk, Kuryakin grinds his teeth and clamps his jaws closed. I believe it's his training from UNCLE…"

"Yes, he's proven a hard nut to crack," Mortensen agreed as she straightened and then stood up. "But we don't have time for any further delays. You and I will take Mr. Kuryakin with us to bait our trap. Mr. Solo must chase us around Koblenz for a little while so Rodeum can finish preparing the devices needed. We can't let UNCLE find our hidden base until after we have Solo under our influence.

"Rodeum's disgusting obsession with men has pushed the Order to make a stand, ahead of schedule, and we must strike fast, before they know we are a force to be reckoned with."

With that last statement, Mortensen turned to the Nazi flag with a look of pure determination and pride, snapped to attention and raised her arm high. Fearful of the glint in his superior's eyes, Fredric silently swallowed, steeled himself, and mimicked her salute in every way. "For the Fatherland and _der Furher_!"

MFU/MFU

Napoleon woke up in a confused and in an irritated state. Images and voices filled these thoughts when he tried to clear his mind. Slowly, as he eyes started to focus, he realized that he that he was strapped to a gurney in a white room with bars on the window.

"What the hell…?" Napoleon asked as a low, pain filled moan came from the bed next to his.

Lifting his head up high enough to look over at the man making the ridiculous noise, Solo shook his head in utter shock. It was Delgado! The THRUSH agent was restrained like his was, but restlessly shifting around the narrow bed, crying out in discomfort and distress. Not in words, but mumbling incoherently.

Finally, after staring at the man squirming around like the worm on a hook, Napoleon's memory was starting to clear. He remembered leaving the airport and getting into a car with Delgado as agents from both UNCLE and THRUSH followed along in different cars. They had tracked Illya's signal to the warehouse district, only to find a deserted hideout that looked like it hadn't been used since the Second World War. Then it happened, a glimpse of Illya with some woman. It was just a flash and then they were gone.

He and Delgado tried to catch up to them and call their backups at the same time, but that proved impossible. Each time they got close enough to call out to Illya, they would disappear around another corner. Leading them on through the maze of buildings and pockets of hidden rooms gave Napoleon a sinking feeling that they weren't the hunters, but rather, the ones being hunted.

What bothered Napoleon the most were Illya's eyes; completely blank of recognition and robot-like action as if he was letting the woman with him lead him around. Then a shot whizzed by his ear as he and Delgado turned that last corner, their backups long forgotten several twists and turns ago. Mario went down with that first shot and Napoleon with the second, everything went black.

His memory returning, Napoleon turned away from the struggling THRUSH agent and laid his head back down, trying to calm his own rising fear and assess the situation. He needed to get out of these restraints and out of this room before they, whoever they were, came back to did what they did to Delgado, whatever it was to him. He didn't even know if he'd been worked on already.

"Ah, Mr. Solo," Fredric Klaus said, followed by his lab partner, came into the room in his scrubs and warmly smiled as he pulled something out of his pocket. "I see that you're awake. Wonderful, you can witness what we are about to do to you by we have done to Mr. Delgado first. Although, it may take awhile to start your procedure because we weren't expecting the two of you and Col. Mortensen wanted to talk with you first."

"I take it that I should be thankful, Doctor..?" Napoleon smiled sharply, trying to buy time.

"I'm Dr. Klaus and this is Dr. Rodeum." Both men bowed in turn and nodded.

"Charmed," Napoleon sneered lightly, watching Dieter move away from his gurney and walk towards Mario. "What did you do to him, doc?"

"Infested him with a VIRUS," Fredric chuckled at the play of words, allowing Solo full view of Dieter's examination of the squirming THRUSH agent. He then proceeded to tell him what he had previously told Kuryakin about the mind-controlling device. "Your friend is quite amazing, Mr. Solo."

"Well, I don't know about that," Napoleon said with a slight jerk of his head toward Delgado who cried out in pain as Dieter, holding a small remote in his beefy hand, talked to him softly.

"Not that one," Fredric said with a grunt of humor. "Your partner, Mr. Kuryakin or should I say Comrade Kuryakin, soon to be known by the illustrious name of _Herr _Kuryakin in the New World Order of the Nazi party."

"So, that is what this is all about?" Napoleon asked and was about to say more, but was cut off by another ear piercing wail from Delgado.

"Fredric, he's going to progress slowly, just like the other subjects." Dieter stood up with a touch of melancholy and disappointment as he turned toward his lab partner. "This may take longer than the dragon lady wants."

"I'd watch that tongue of yours Dr. Rodeum." Lisa Mortensen said calmly as she walked into the detention cell with a silent Illya Kuryakin between her and her bulky security guard, Günter. "One might take you lack of respect seriously and that would not be a wise thing to do. How's our THRUSH agent doing?"

"Same as the others," Dieter said stiffly while he intelligently decided to drop his previously voiced train of thought and into more of a professional scientific mode. "If he survives tonight, it's going to take him a least a week to get to Kuryakin's level before he's ready. He's barely tolerating the first level of radio frequency."

Mortensen nodded, turned from Delgado's stretcher, and walked over to sit on the edge of Solo's. From where she had stood at first, Napoleon couldn't see that Illya was behind her. Once she had changed her position to gloat over him, he saw her mumble softly into something concealed in her hand.

Günter, who held in a tight grasp on what appeared to be a solid, steel chain that ran to metal handcuffs securing the dazed UNCLE agent's wrists. He gave Illya a rough shove forward to stand next to his superior officer.

Illya's blank eyes didn't look up until his mind slowly registered that shoes of the person lying on the gurney were similar to what Napoleon wore which were specially made with supports that make running easier.

Slowly, with great effort, Illya jutted his chin forward and looked up to Napoleon's waiting face. The color of his eyes told his partner volumes more than any words could. They were cold, hard, and deep blue, just like when Illya had been drugged to the gills and didn't even know his name.

The whole room was watching the blond man's reaction in deadly silence. He was the only experimental subject to get this far this quickly and to face someone he knew. Even Delgado had chosen this time to quietly pass out from sheer exhaustion.

Tense moments clicked by slowly as they all held their breath. Illya began to tremble lightly, seemingly trying to force his body to move, but couldn't. His jaw clinched repeatedly and the muscles rippled.

"You see, Mr. Solo," Mortensen mused, watching the internal battle in her first UNCLE acquisition. "He's no longer in control and is quickly becoming the perfect person to bring down both UNCLE and THRUSH." She turned to stroke on finger down Napoleon's cheek. "I'm hoping that you prove to be just as willing a participant as he is. I can only hope you'll pass through each stage of adjustment as quickly."

"To be what?" Napoleon demanded, letting go of his connection with the shell of his partner long enough to focus on the female commander. "A mindless drone who has to be forced into performing tricks? Illya must not be as completely under your control as you say, because you have to secure him with handcuffs and a guard."

"He's not ready yet," Dieter interrupted with an air of indignation and defense for his invention. "I theorize that once Mr. Kuryakin is able to talk, we will use all his natural talents to do as ordered with just a few key words and signals. He's losing his ability to fight the VIRUS device."

"And when he in no longer able to resist what we're telling him is complete, I'll have a powerful weapon." Lisa Mortensen said triumphantly and draped herself seductively atop Napoleon seductively. "How will our little device affect you, Napoleon? Mr. Delgado has been a complete disappointment so far." She pouted. "Will you satisfy my short term needs?"

"I would think that Illya would have fit the bill better with his Aryan looks and skill with that barbarically, guttural Germanic language of yours. I prefer to woo a woman with a more romantic language like Italian."

Napoleon's flirtatious tone matched hers as he tried not to overreact to the closeness of her shapely body she'd insured he could feel through her heavy uniform.

"Ah," Lisa sighed heavily, breathing in his after-shave and rubbing her cheek against his. "I prefer my men with brown eyes like _der Furher_ with a firm..." She trailed a finger down his chest and stomach. "Dr. Rodeum is the one who's fond of the boy wonder over there. He's into boys and I'm into real men like you, Mr. Solo. It's such a shame that I'll have to wait until you've been operated on before I can…"

"Decoy!"

Startled by the unexpected explosion from Kuryakin, everyone quickly turned towards him, but no one not fast enough to prevent him from lashing out. Swinging the chain attached to his handcuffs up, he spun around to wrap it around Günter's neck and began to pull hard.

Thinking quickly, Dieter ran forward and attempted to grab the hapless guard's gun from its holster. Meanwhile, Mortensen put her hand up to Fredric to not intervening as she pulled herself off of Solo and fingered the remote.

"Let go of him now, Illya." Lisa's firm, controlled voice spoke into the tiny speaker.

Illya's actions slowed, fighting for control of his body and will, but he didn't release his hold on Günter.

"Turn up the frequency!" Dieter rasped when he finally got the gun out of its holster where it was wedged between the struggling men and pointed it at Illya with shaky hands.

"Illya," Lisa repeated again after turning the dial up two notches up. "Release him now!"

An intense wave of pain shot through his partner's head and then quickly ran throughout to the rest of him. A grunt, then a scream erupted from Illya's tight throat as he practically threw Günter to the ground in reaction to the pain before crumpling to the cement floor lost in a seizure.

Dieter awkwardly traced the action of the guard and his precious commodity's fall the floor with the borrowed gun before it abruptly went off in his hand. In shock, he dropped the smoking gun.

After, what felt to Napoleon like an eternity of watching the action in slow motion, he waited anxiously to see who was dead. He wished he could sit up higher on the cart to get a better view of his friend.

"Dieter, you fool!"

In one fluid action, Mortensen pulled out her own gun, took aim, and shot Dieter right between his eyes.

"No!" Fredric shouted in anguish as he dropped to his cousin's side and tried to find a pulse he knew wouldn't be there.

"Come now, Dr. Klaus," Mortensen reprimanded her subordinate. "You knew that this action was inevitable. I couldn't have him presenting our newest weapon to the high commander. You now are the sole scientist on this project and will receive all the glory these three will give us."

Getting up with a somber look on his face, Fredric nodded and raised his arm unsteadily. "_Danke,_ Col. Mortensen, I shall make you proud. _Heil Hitler_!"

"_Heil to der Furher_," Lisa shouted with renewed vigor, then smiled. "I see that our Mr. Kuryakin is with us again. Amazing, even with a nasty bullet wound to his arm, not even a sound was uttered. Günter, stand up. Dr. Klaus will dress that wound of yours."

"No more than a scratch, Madam," Günter said smugly and picked up his gun from where Dieter had dropped it to aim it at the recovering UNCLE agent. "I want my rights to address my issues with this _Russian." _

"I look forward to it," Mortensen smiled and then lifted the remote to her mouth. "Illya, stand up."

Despite the limited use of his left arm, Illya gracefully rose from the floor to stand at attention.

"You are going to listen to me very carefully," Lisa said in a purr.

"_Da_," A horse voice echoed oddly in the small room.

"Good, but you will answer only in German or English." A feral smile crossed Lisa's lips after he nodded to her command. "You'll do as you're told by me or Dr. Klaus. I will assess the skills that we'll use in our cause for world domination against UNCLE and THRUSH while you will compete with Günter as to who is the better soldier. His reputation is at stake and you've proved to be just as nasty."

"Thank you, Madam. I'll try not to hurt him too much…" Günter simpered.

"Humph!" Napoleon chuckled loud enough to draw their attention back to him. "I wish you luck, old man. Mr. Kuryakin is one hundred percent Russian in attitude. He's already been a guest of your Nazi hospitality when he was young. He's got a lot of hidden pent-up anger in him."

"Oh, what a challenge we'll have, but unfortunately for you, Mr. Solo, you won't be around to see it," The female commander sighed dramatically while starting to again run her finger through his hair. "Well, we'll just have to have our fun later on. Dr. Klaus."

"Yes madam?" Fredric stepped closer to Napoleon's gurney to peer over him as his superior officer did.

"Take Mr. Kuryakin to Dr. Schmitt, your new lab partner," Lisa said in a professional tone. "I sent for him as soon as Mr. Kuryakin had passed through the first three phases of the experiment and you had shown success in implanting the VIRUS in Mr. Delgado. He'll patch up the arm and you can start on Mr. Solo here."

"Yes, Madam," Fredric nodded stoically and pulled a pre-filled syringe out of his lab coat pocket, popped the cap, and jammed it home into Napoleon's deltoid while he and Mortensen continued to look at him.

"Sweet dreams, Mr. Solo."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

"Wake up!" Fredric roughly patted Napoleon's cheeks to bring him around.

"Hey, what the…" Napoleon stammered as he became aware of his surroundings in an operating room as he gripped Klaus's hands to prevent him from slapping him again.

"You need to escape." Fredric pushed away from him and swept around the room. "You need to get out of here and bring UNCLE here to stop us."

"I won't leave without Illya," Napoleon said, pulling himself up to sit on the edge of the exam table while he waited for his head to clear. "Why are you helping me?"

"She killed my friend and cousin!" Klaus lashed back angrily from across the room. "And; she is going to use your friend to destroy everything that's standing in her way to world domination. She wants to be the first female _Furher_ and she doesn't care who she has to use or kill to do it."

"Günter, he was her first test subject and now he's totally committed to her no matter what. And now; she'll have Illya to join her elite pack of dogs." Fredric spat out as he went to dig through a drawer, looking for something. "The problem is…Günter will stop at nothing to kill Mr. Kuryakin. He despises Russians with a passion and the VIRUS doesn't prevent the test subject from holding onto deep-seated hatred."

"It's Illya who will kill him," Napoleon disagreed.

"No," Klaus stopped his rummaging to stare at the UNCLE agent in wonderment. "Günter needs to kill him or I will have to do the job."

"What!"

Solo took the risk of hopping off the operating table, but kept his hand firmly on its edge for extra support. The shock of the doctor's statement nearly brought him to his knees.

"Ah…here it is…" Klaus, oblivious to Napoleon's distress, found to be what appeared to be a black box the size of a cigarette pack with two parallel ball-tipped rods jutting out one side.

"What is that?" Napoleon weakly asked, trying to focus on the agitated man.

"This is what will destroy the VIRUS device in the back of your partner's neck if he manages to live through Günter's challenge." Fredric showed him the box the size of a transistor radio and then he pointed to the on switch. "Place the prongs on either side of where the device is implanted and then push this button. It goes right along on the incision line and then a strong volt of electricity will fry the receiving's box circuitry and destroy the connection."

"And what about Illya," the dark-haired agent asked. "What will happen to him?"

"He'll die if course." Fredric merely shrugged his concern away. "We have to deal with the big picture here. End a few lives to save the world…from her."

"No, I won't sacrifice my partner," Napoleon said calmly as he grabbed the crude taser.

"I can't let your friend live…" Klaus shook his head unapologetically.

"Isn't this sweet, Günter?" Lisa Mortensen sang out sweetly and almost child-like through the doorway with a gun leveled at the two men. "Good thing you wanted to check on Dr. Klaus. This is not what we were seeing through the monitors. You were very convincing for a while, Doctor, that you supported our cause to its full extent."

"Man, I hate it when she sneaks up on a person." Napoleon complained, dramatically rolling his eyes, and then turned toward the interlopers, standing slightly in front of Dr. Klaus. "Colonel Mortensen, I'm so very glad to see you again."

"I'm not very happy seeing you vertical, Mr. Solo." Mortensen acknowledged him with a slight tip of her head. "But, I must say that I relish these little twists and turns in life, don't you?"

"Depends on who you dance with and the type of music," Napoleon smiled brightly with a dip forward and unspoken challenge to the officer.

"Well spoken, but I plan to stick with Günter here to fill most of my dance card."

"Yes, same old dance routine and shall we say, 'putting all your eggs in one basket?'" The bored insult slipped easily from his lips.

"It's easier to keep in step that way and away from the broken yolks," the lady smirked happily as her pretty face darkened. "But, since I have to wait for Dr. Schmitt to finish reading Dieter's notes to perform the next implantation and hopefully to get our reluctant Dr. Klaus here to assist him. You, Mr. Solo, have just volunteered to assess Mr. Kuryakin's abilities for us. Then, I'll let Günter give him his final test."

"Sounds like great fun." Napoleon chuckled softly. "Just like any other day at the office."

Lisa slowly walked up to Napoleon, gun still in her hand, and wrapped her arms around him. He felt the pressure of a gun barrel being pressed into his back. He could smell her subtle lilac perfume filling his nose as she rubbed his cheek, once again, with hers.

"The man you will fight won't be your partner, but an animal trained to follow my commands." Her hushed voice washed passed his ear. "But, don't worry; I will give him orders to only hurt you a little, not to kill, because I need to you to help satisfy my needs first to rule the world and then as a woman."

"Dieter was right about you," he whispered back. "You are a dragon lady."

"Only the best women can strike fear in the strongest of men. I take it as a compliment." Mortensen smiled and pulled away from him. "Maybe, one day, if you're lucky, you and I will compete, but for now, it's between partners and friends."

"Illya could never really hurt me." Napoleon glared defiantly at her with full confidence in his friend.

"Well then, lead the way, Mr. Solo." Lisa gestured to him to leave the room with two guards to follow and then turned to Günter. "Lock up Dr. Klaus until Dr. Schmitt is ready for him."

"Yes, madam."

MFU/MFU

"Vhat the hell ist going on here, Lisa?" Ludwig Schmitt fumed as he stalked through the doorway to her office, slammed it shut, and stood in front of her desk.

"Luddy," Mortensen sighed and pushed her chair back, gracefully rocked her body out of her chair, and headed to a small wet bar in the corner. "Directly to the point as usual, how is Kuryakin's arm?"

"Not as bad as I was lead to believe." The fat, balding doctor grunted out and practically fell into the nearest chair. "Mostly tissue and muscle damage; I stitched him up. He shouldn't even have that much of a scar, compared to his others."

"Good, we wouldn't want to disappoint Günter." Her voice could be barely heard above the sound of ice hitting the bottom of a glass and the clink of her ring against the cap of a liquor bottle.

"You have more important things to worry about than appeasing your young upstart. Thank you," Ludwig said swiftly, taking the offered glass and set it on his thigh. "You were giving orders by the high commander to…"

"Yes, yes, I know." Lisa carefully set her glass of schnapps down and sat back at her desk, leaned heavily on her elbows, and ran her fingers through her short blond hair. "Develop a mind control device, get rid of Dr. Rodeum, and work with you to bring our findings to the higher-ups in the party so they can be acted upon. An impossible test of my abilities to succeed…"

"So what went wrong?" Schmitt asked softly with a weak smile at the sinking disaster this project was becoming.

"Nothing has gone seriously wrong, _yet_." Mortensen said shrewdly looking at her mentor as she picked up her glass while pointing a finger at him. "I just had to change the order of what I'm to accomplish here with my _given_ assignment, that is, if you're willing to help me. I'll share my credit with you when I report our success. We'll present a conditioned Napoleon Solo of UNCLE and Mario Delgado of THRUSH to the high commander."

"Don't you mean Mr. Kuryakin as well?" asked the doctor with a raised eyebrow, listening to a plan brewing. "I mean, that I still have to piece Dieter's notes together and rebuild one of the only two pieces of the VIRUS device that survived Fredric's past moments of insanity…"

"Past?" Lisa asked dryly, but not a bit surprised to learn of the doctor's treatment of his inferior colleagues.

"Yes, I decided that I didn't need him," Schmitt said smugly as he took his time to examine his finger nails. "He was more of a liability alive than dead, so why not Kuryakin?"

"He's too unpredictable and I can't totally trust him." Lisa's eyes bore down on her ally while deep in thought. "Hell, I don't know if the great Napoleon Solo will bend to our will, but he's a closer fit to our experiment's requirements than that Russian bastard. Illya will be part of my elite group of assassins, eventually. I don't care if I have to wait for Solo and Delgado to be ready like the others in our experiment. I know plenty of places to hide."

"Then, we have our game plan," Ludwig said in finality as he stood up from his chair, threw back his head to take the last of the drink in one gulp, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Are you really going to pit Solo against Kuryakin?"

"What a better way to prove to Solo that he no longer has a friend and partner to help him and before whisking him away to be implanted?"

"Oh, you are evil, my darling." Ludwig smiled and reached out to trace a lock of Lisa's hair across her pale forehead, ending with a tap on her nose. "Do we have time?"

"Of course," Lisa smiled seductively. "I just have to give orders to not to be disturb for the next hour and get the UNCLE agents ready, and then I'll meet you in your room."

"I'll give you ten minutes before I get to be the one on top." Schmitt said smoothly as he left to freshen up, but paused when thought of something. "What level of frequency is our little Russian is up to?"

The odd question caught her by surprise, but she pulled out the remote device and looked at it. The notch indicated the second to last number "Level 9, why?"

"Just to let you know, from Dieter's notes, that last level will fry his brain and you won't have your security guard anymore."

"Will it kill him?" she asked. She'd unaware of yet another possible wrench in her plans and was hoping to avoid another kink in her path to supremacy.

"Don't know; just possibly turn him into just a vegetable." The doctor nonchalantly shrugged and left Mortensen's office with a tap of a finger to his forehead. "See you shortly…"

Lisa's smile lasted only as long as it took to lose sight of the unlikeable man that she had to make happy and keep in her camp. She didn't see anything wrong in sleeping her way to the top and quite enjoyed it sometimes, but even a bigger thrill would be to sample Solo's body. Thoughts like that got her wet enough to endure having sex with the very boring and single-minded Luddy.

"Well, onward and upwards," Lisa said, blowing out her breath and picked up the phone while pocketing her remote again.

MFU/MFU

Napoleon sighed to himself as he was led to the small gym off to the right of his detention cell. He'd spent the last two hours sitting in the cool, dim room listening to several people moaning and sporadically calling out in pain, and then came the mind-numbing sudden silence.

Throughout all of this madness, he still had to form a plan to how to beat Illya at a battle of wills without each of them being seriously hurt. His skilled partner knew all his moves and some he didn't even know he had and Illya could anticipate throws like a demon.

"But, how much will he remember?" Napoleon silently asked as he watched his friend being led into the room by Günter and Col. Mortensen. This time, he was unrestrained and sported a circular bandage on his left arm.

Illya looked very much his usual self, but with a razor sharp glare on his blank face. A quick wave of a wrinkle in his forehead let Napoleon know that he briefly recognized by his partner, but it was gone in a flash.

"Mr. Solo." The female commander dressed in military fatigues walked up one of her prize possession; leaning her whole body into Solo's personal space. "Do you need time to warm up?"

"I may," Napoleon said slowly after taking a deep, analyzing breath. "You've worked up quite a sweat yourself. You should've showered before coming here."

"What makes you think that I did not shower for your benefit?" Lisa seductively smiled, letting her sex-laden aromatic breath wash over him.

"You have nothing that I would ever want in a lover." Napoleon said coldly while grimacing at the obviously unsavory scent, but determined to stand his ground. "I don't do sloppy seconds."

"Be careful, Mr. Solo," the dragon lady snarled harshly as she stepped back smoothly, trying to hide her fierce anger. "You'll never know until you try."

"I think, I'll pass this time," Napoleon arrogantly shot back and won this round of battles of wills. "I'm ready. I warmed up in the cell."

"Good." Mortensen backed up to the corner with her little band of thugs stood and her security chief, Günter, the small remote pulled from her breast pocket "Illya, remember what I told you; demonstrate your skills, but don't kill or break bones."

"Da," a deep, soft voice sounded out as the two men came closer together on the rubber wrestling mat in the center of the room.

"Let the competition begin, now!"

Illya and Napoleon walked to the painted circle on the spongy mat and stopped to look each other up and down. Wordlessly, they stood for a whole minute.

"I'm not going to do it," Napoleon said finally with a tilt of his chin as he crossed his arms over his chest. It was a bluff that he'd used many times before.

"Napoleon…decoy," Illya blurted out, his deep, ocean blue eyes stared past him, getting stormier by the second in his internal struggle.

"You're babbling again." Solo continued to infuriate the conflicted blond man even further. "Not until we shake hands like we do at headquarters."

"Get on with it," Mortensen called out into the device when Illya hesitated and scrutinized the taller man more closely.

"Not until he shakes my hand. We always shake hands…" Solo shouted and raised his hands up in laughing annoyance.

"Illya, darling," the frustrated commander said sweetly into the device's speaker after soundly shushing her snickering guards. "Shake the irritating man's hand and get on with this."

A slow, thoughtful nod from Illya was the only thing Napoleon saw in his blank face while he tried to spit out another word as he extended a trembling hand, "Ploy…"

In his periphery, Napoleon noticed that Dr. Schmitt strolled into the gym with a "cat ate the female commander's canary" look about him. He stopped short of standing next to Mortensen who unconsciously rolled her eyes in disgust just before she turned to him in acknowledgement of his presence with a subtle, knowing smile.

"Problems still?" Napoleon heard the menacing doctor murmur to the evil woman, bringing his head closer to hers as they watched Illya extend his trembling hand to him.

"Yes," she frowned lightly, and nodded in reluctant despair of having to finally get rid a test subject to the doctor. "I think that we have to try level ten and see what happens…"

Schmitt opened his palm, waiting for her to give him the remote controlling the flawed UNCLE agent. "Never trust a Russian to make the perfect soldier. That is why we will crush them when the time comes, sub-humans…"

Reluctantly, she handed him the remote, but Napoleon couldn't worry about that right now. He had to make a decision and quickly. Grabbing at Illya's offered hand, he pulled his body towards him, bringing him off-centered, and spinning to the left.

By instinct, Illya completed the swirl, planning to use Napoleon's weight against him after he grabbed for his arm. Anticipating this, because it was one Illya's favorite moves, he twisted just out of reach and did something he normally wouldn't do. But this time had no choice.

Napoleon shoved his friend's shoulder hard enough to make him lose his balance and fall to the mat in an uncoordinated heap. He jumped on Illya's back and held his arms securely down with his legs, whipping out the crude taser and pressed it firmly against his partner's neck while depressing the button.

Illya's scream was instant and earth shattering. His body jerked once and then went limp under Napoleon. The startled people in the room looked around. In the hands of both Dr. Schmitt and Napoleon Solo's were similar black remotes, each pointed at the unconscious blond man.

Napoleon stiffened as he looked down at his pale partner, dropped the spent taser, and began to search for a pulse. To his relief he found one, a fast, thread one. Rough hands lifted him off the smaller man and yanked him to a standing position, pinning his arms behind his back. He then felt the painful snap of handcuffs.

Mortensen walked over to Illya's side, kicked him hard enough to turn him over. She bent to feel for a pulse and then slapped his face hard. After a few tense moments, Illya let out a soft breath and started to ramble, a strange mixture of foreign words and phrases.

Schmitt came forward and pushed the female officer out of the way and roughly pulled the dazed UNCLE agent's eye open one after the other.

"_Ya_, he's toast." Schmitt confirmed as he straightened up and pointed the guards holding Solo. "You two, take him back to a cell. Handcuff him to the wall, so he can be ready for surgery in the morning. Günter, take Kuryakin here to another cell. I'll check on him later."

"Yes, sir." Günter excitedly smiled as he and another guard picked up the semi-conscious Kuryakin and pulled him in another direction to be tossed into a cell down the hall. The man was his to toy with now that he was no longer a threat to him.

MFU/MFU

Napoleon sighed, being chained to a wall standing up wasn't what was keeping him awake into the wee hours of the night or the thought of the experimental surgery he was to endure in a few hours. No, it was the comments the guards and Dr. Schmitt had made about Illya.

They didn't realize that Solo could understand German as they shouted rancorously outside his cell door. They laughed and dared each other into performing petty torments on the mumbling UNCLE agent. Throwing buckets of water on him, pushing and shoving him around the small cell while shouting profanities at him. It was the typical gang of thugs mentality that the Nazis were known for and their bastards off-springs were just as bad.

Even the fine Dr. Schmitt had come in earlier to take Napoleon's blood for another experiment he was working on and arrogantly regaled him with how Illya's recovery from the VIRUS device wasn't very likely. He and Delgado were the chosen ones now who would bring the New World Order to great heights. Once he finished with Solo in the morning and the procedure was deemed a success, they would kill his friend and dissect his brain to determine the device's effects on him.

Most of what Schmitt spat out at him appeared to blow right past Napoleon like a sour wind. He said nothing and revealed nothing the man's bloated ego's satisfaction in his supposed triumph over him and UNCLE.

Napoleon still had a few hours to plan something. What something he didn't know, it was a little feeling hopeless now that Illya wasn't there to save him. But, he wasn't going to let the doctor know that. Maybe UNCLE or even THRUSH would find out where they were and was planning to attack.

Not getting the response he wanted from Solo, Schmitt chuckled menacingly. "Think that UNCLE is going to save you now? Well, they'd better hurry. A few more touches to this rebuilt remote and then I'll be cutting into your flesh, Mr. Solo."

Napoleon leaned his head back against the wall and gave the man a bored look that just angered the doctor to where he ground his teeth and huffed out of the room with a growl. After his departure, the dim cell became peacefully quiet again.

As the deadly silent night wore on, Napoleon began to mourn for his friend. He was the only partner who had lasted this long and Illya was his ideal counterpoint. They complimented each other well; what one lacked, the other made up for. He would miss the Russian's bright smile, his ready wit, his steady hand with a gun or detonator.

Thinking back, Napoleon couldn't remember very many times that Illya had actually told him much of his past. Most of the time he had to be falling down drunk, which was hard to get him to accomplish unless Solo somehow won a drinking contest. That had happened only once and then he was so drunk, he'd passed out before he could really ask Illya anything of importance and probably wouldn't have remembered anything the Russian had said.

The one other time he'd found out that Illya's father had died at the hands of the Nazis and his mother in childbirth of a premature younger brother a few years prior. That information came when his partner was so doped up on painkillers he'd started to reenact a radio puppet show from his youth, including all the children's voices.

A light scraping sound at the cell door instantly caught Napoleon's attention. Surprisingly, there stood his partner, lips pursed and forehead slightly furled, staring at him. He swayed back and forth as he worked the lock on the door.

With a soft click the door gave way. Illya walked into the room and stood in front of his stunned partner, speaking to Napoleon in a small, cracked, over-strained voice. Napoleon tried to understand him, but the more Illya waited for an expected response, the more convinced Napoleon became that Illya had suffered some sort of brain damage from the injuries to his head.

"Sorry, pal, but you're not speaking a language anyone knows." Napoleon replied, hoping that he could reason with the blond. "How about you try English please; you haven't been yourself lately."

Illya slowly digested what Napoleon had said with a tightening of his jaw and lips pressed into a straight line. After a brief moment of thought, Illya silently nodded, shrugged his stiff shoulders, and then purposely relaxed his stance.

"Who have I've been?" he asked him in a hoarse whisper in perfect, albeit British accented, English. Bringing his handmade lock pick up to release Napoleon's wrists, Illya added. "Why do I have stitches in my arm and woke up in a cell."

"Well, you weren't Mary Poppins," Napoleon teased. "More like a mini Frankenstein's monster who couldn't say anything but, 'Decoy.'"

"Ah…" Illya nodded, ignoring the glib response while assimilating information. "I don't remember… between… talking with Doctors and relieving guards of their guns. I'm here… save you…"

"Save me?" Napoleon said as they settled down into their usual bickering tone while he and Illya opened the cell's door and peer into the vacant hallway. "I'm here to save you. Delgado and I were ordered to work together to find you."

"Delgado? Mario Delgado? THRUSH?" Illya whispered in frustration as they crept down the short corridor. _Merde_, Illya thought with an eye roll, Waverly is going to blister my ears and have me on desk duty for this…

"Yes and no, he's working on trying to keep you out of THURSH's hands after old Sven decided it was you who blew up all his weaponry in Zurich. You're a popular man, Junior."

Illya gave Napoleon a deadly appraising look while watching for guards and here they came. Two security guards casually walking down the hall with their rifles cradled loosely in their arms. Bored, they peered through the window of each cell door just long enough to make sure there was a poor soul in each room and then moved on.

It only took the UNCLE agents mere seconds to subdue the guards, strip them of their uniforms, tie them up, and then throw them into an empty cell. Napoleon filled Illya in on the general setup of this section of the satrapy that he'd seen so far and it was quickly agreed it was time to leave, but not before finding the blueprints to the VIRUS device and blowing up the lab.

MFU/MFU

"Lost," Illya grumbled nervously as they rounded yet another corner of the detention area with no other guard or form of security to stop them.

"No, I'm not lost." Napoleon said firmly. "They took me from the lab and through the gym to get the 'supervised treatment center' where you found me. Look, there's the main door to the gym."

Illya eyed the door suspiciously when they drew nearer. He was trying to shake the feeling of uneasiness that he had before. The hairs on the back of his neck were on end, just like when this whole business had first started in Munich. They were telling him that they shouldn't go this way; they should find another way around or just leave, find help, and came back with reinforcements. His hands began to unconsciously tighten its grip on the borrowed rifle.

"… bad feeling…" Illya murmured breathlessly to his partner who had walked ahead of him and stopped just short of the door with his back still to him.

"It's the quickest way there and it's not going to take Col. Mortensen and Dr. Schmitt long…"

"No, it won't take long at all." An angry voice echoed out in the cramped hallway as the female Nazi officer came up behind Napoleon, her pistol raised. "Where is he, Mr. Solo?"

Feeling the coolness of a gun barrel pressing against his neck, Napoleon slowly laid his stolen rifle on the ground before straightening up with his hands raised. "Where is who?"

"Mr. Kuryakin, of course," she hissed out, pushing the barrel deeper into his shiny, dark hair. "Dr. Schmitt went to go to check on him and found only two bound and gagged security guards. So, I ask you again, where is the little shit?"

"Is it my responsibility to find your mislaid, incapacitated prisoners?" Napoleon asked, trying to remain calm and slowly turned around to face his current nemesis and the gun pointed right between his eyes.

For a moment, Lisa didn't rise to his bait as they continued their battle of wills and egos, but then she finally blinked. Not really staring at her, Napoleon used his peripheral vision to look past the guards and Günter for Illya. He had disappeared into the shadows, nowhere to be found.

Napoleon wondered if they knew if the blond spy was back to normal or not. Hell, he didn't know that either. It was a chance that had to be taken and now it was his responsibility to buy his friend some time.

"Tell me," Mortensen hissed. "Did he let you out or did you let him out?"

"Well, you see, it's a long story. It all began when I was just a young man of fourteen…" Napoleon innocently smiled his brightest at her, his voice smooth as glass.

"Fool!" she spat at him. "Games and tricks are all you know. You're just wasting our time. Once we find where that brain-dead partner of yours has wondered off to, I'm going to kill him painfully and slowly in front of you just to prove to you that all hope is gone, and then Dr. Schmitt is going to perform the surgery that will make you a mere puppet for us to control."

"I wouldn't bet on that," Napoleon stated fiercely, his stare turned from cool and aloof to a sharp and penetrating. "This is your last chance to do something right. Give up now and I'll try to help you when the time comes."

"You help me!" Lisa screamed out in sheer anger, turned, and pointed to two of the guards. "You two take Mr. Solo here to the showers and clean him up for his surgery. The Nazi way, he still stinks of UNCLE. Oh, Napoleon, before you go…"

As the two bulky guards moved to muscle their prisoner through the cramped hallway, the female colonel pulled out a syringe out of her coat pocket, popped the cap and jammed it home into the stunned agent's neck.

"Auuugh…" Napoleon gasped out after the heat from the injection ran down his shoulder.

"Don't worry," Mortensen evilly chuckled while the thugs carried him out the door. "It's only a light sedative to make you more cooperative. Doctor's orders, you know. You'll still feel and understand everything that will be done to you. Now, take him away! And the rest of you find Kuryakin! He has a date with death."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Wasting no time, Illya Kuryakin crept around the corridors of the detention cells and pulled his guard's cap low over to hide his blond hair. He straightened up and saluted all those who crossed his path. They took him for a new, impressionably, young security guard. He called out basic greetings in perfect German and then nodded at the running jokes they told him about working too hard for the female commander.

He really didn't want to leave Napoleon alone, but somehow knew that he would be safe enough for a short while. Memories of the guards shouting at him while throwing cold water on him circled in his mind; giving him the information that it wasn't him they wanted; Delgado and Napoleon were the chosen one. Illya remembered, while still in a haze, a man in a white lab coat trying to talk to him while drawing his blood, about performing the same procedure that he had undergone on his partner in the morning.

The longer he explored the Nazis' hideout, the more determined he became to find the lab, blow it up, and save Napoleon. Delgado was a different matter. Maybe, they didn't have to return that murdering bastard to THRUSH and could simply claim that he died at the hands of the New World Order.

Illya smiled darkly at that thought, his mind clearing as earlier conversations to and around him in the cell began to echo loudly in his ears in the deadly silence of the hall. He started to search the pockets of the borrowed Nazi uniform while he crept up to another intersecting corridor. This hallway looked promising to the UNCLE agent and he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. The warm feeling he got when exercising his inner pyromaniac swelled as a small smirk turned into a full blown smile.

MFU/MFU

"I can't understand why you can't find one God-damn Russian asshole with over fifteen guards running around here!" In the gym, Lisa Mortensen yelled out hotly to her soldiers as the claxons of alarms and shouts of chaos rang through the biggest room in the satrapy.

Kuryakin was creating quite a stir in her secret camp and she was furious. Not only had Dieter's little boy toy ruined her mission for the supreme commander of the New World Order, but in one fell swoop destroyed her career and any hope of ruling the world.

And for that he must die!

Just as she was about to bark out more commands, another explosion rocked the base's foundation.

"Fuck!" The female commander screamed while trying to remain on her feet, but she wasn't heard through the havoc these blasts were creating amongst her subordinates. "Christ, that's the third one! Find him! Find him now!"

"Ma'am that last explosion came from the lab," a guard warned, "near the chemical storage. We have soldiers working on it, but I'd advise that we evacuate as soon as possible."

"Inform all non-infantry personnel to take the experimental group, leave the building, and regroup in our other facilities on the east side of town. I want an attendance report." Mortensen ordered and sent the man back to the offices before she turned to her security chief in a simmering rage. "Tell the men to bring Mr. Solo to me. I'm going to flush out that bastard by dangling his friend in front of him. I want my revenge and I want it now!"

"I already gave the command to bring him here." Günter calmly stated, happy that he was able to predict his superior officer's needs. More evidence to prove to her just how much he loved her all the more. He practically glowed when he saw her relaxed slightly and smiled at him.

"Always anticipating me, eh Günter?" Mortensen asked softly as the side door to the gym banged open.

The great Napoleon Solo was dragged into the room by two burly guards and dropped unceremoniously onto the mat. The Nazis commander could tell that he had indeed received his shower with the high powered hose and wore a fiery glow from having his skin nearly blasted off his bones.

The sedative was still packing a punch as it took several deep breaths and two attempts for the UNCLE agent to get to his feet. Mortensen nodded to Günter. He and another guard finally yanked the man to his feet and held him firmly in place.

"Well, Mr. Solo." Lisa laughed out her frustration, drawing herself in as close to him as possible. "It seems your soon to be dead partner is giving us a pretty good fight."

Napoleon didn't respond to her words. He was concentrating on just standing on his wobbly legs. The drug she had given his made it hard to react and everything he did was in slow motion. He smiled drunkenly at the damage his friend was causing and knew that Illya would be here shortly to get him out of here.

"You think this is funny, Napoleon?" she purred angrily into his ear, slowly pulling a knife out of her pocket. She engaged the switchblade less than an inch from his face and lightly touched his cheek with it. "I can give you something to laugh about while we wait for Mr. Kuryakin to crawl out of woodwork."

As Mortensen's voice began to rise, the three remaining guards in the room began to circle the stars of this show. They looked nervously around the room to try to spot their elusive intruder, but to no avail. A sudden flash hit just before another explosion ripped through the back of the room.

The room dimmed as rubble started to rain down on them. Three "pfths" could be heard barely over the roar of the fire that began to billow throughout the room; the guards fell without a chance to turn and were dead before they hit the ground.

With the smoke and fire as a back drop Illya walked casually into the room, the gun in his hands still raised and pointed at Günter. Another shot rang out and hit him square in the chest. He went down before he could even grab for his gun. The other guard holding Napoleon's arm quickly followed.

The dazed, UNCLE agent slumped to the right and would have fallen if Mortensen hadn't made a sharp turn with Napoleon's arm draped over her shoulders. Her knife didn't falter from his neck as she rotated, keeping his body between her and Illya's gun.

"You come any closer and I'll kill your lover here…" Mortensen angrily threatened the man standing in front of her, his gun still trained on her.

"Foolish of you," Illya scolded wryly in a mixture of German and English. "You need him alive. Release him now and you can walk out of here…"

"And into what, a prison cell with UNCLE as inquisitor," Lisa sneered as she slowly backed to a door leading out of the gym. "I'll let him go once I get out of here."

"Now," Kuryakin said in low, deadly growl as his patience drained away.

He could drop her anytime he wanted, even if she tried to keep his partner in the way. What concerned him was the unpredictability of Napoleon's uncoordinated movements from whatever was done to him in relation to the trembling knife at his throat.

"You'll have to kill me…"

Before she could finish, Illya calmly pulled the trigger and shot Mortensen in the neck. With a sadly stunned look on her face, she fell back and the knife in her hand went flying, landing a foot from her killer.

Napoleon was dragged off balance with Mortensen, but was able to push himself far enough away from her to land painfully on his raw backside. Illya stuffed his gun into his waistline before walking over to his friend.

"Come on, Napoleon," he grunted, pulling the dazed man back up to his feet.

"What about the others," Solo asked dully as Illya started to pull him forward out of the smoked filled gym.

"Fine..," Kuryakin said in a tired but, purposeful and quiet voice; he was trying to remember what language he was talking to Napoleon in. Taking this satrapy was done by instinct, but to talk and sort through all the languages he knew was a different matter. He was losing his battle with mental exhaustion.

"F-fine?" stuttered Napoleon, trying to keep his feet under him. The Russian grabbing his arm to give him added support.

"Yes, I found… comm… pen and my gun… mercy bullets… I found my…clip…"

"Enough said." Napoleon stopped them abruptly and looked deeply into his partner's vague, dark blue, eyes. "Did you call Waverly or just activate a distress beacon?"

"I talked to…Waverly," the shorter man said, pulling at his partner to continue on. "Sending reinforcements…"

"Lead the way, Alfphonse," a worried Napoleon quipped as the sedative he was given was finally starting to lose its grip on him.

MFU/MFU

The sunshine was blinding as Napoleon and Illya emerged from the hidden stairway. The chaos around them as UNCLE and THRUSH agents were grudgingly worked together to capture the New World Order soldiers exiting the main entrance through the billows of smoke pushed them to the side and the staggering men went mostly unnoticed.

It was April Dancer and her partner, Mark Slate, who noticed their ragtag colleagues emerging and quickly met them while trying not to be obvious about it.

"Illya, Napoleon," April hissed out. "Are you two all right? Never mind, you've got to go to Waverly, or you, my blond friend, will be fair game to any one of these THRUSH agents."

"What she said mates," Mark coined in, helping Illya half-pull, half-carry Napoleon up the black, rusty, metal stairs and around the corner.

With a sly smile to Illya, Mark cursed softly in Russian about how Napoleon weighed a ton. The usually quiet agent nodded, but didn't voice an opinion while tucking his special into his waistband. The relief from having Napoleon safely handed off to Mark was too much and he started to sink to the ground, softly babbling to himself in the same way he had in the cell.

A firm, but gentle hand grasped Illya's arm and pulled him back up before his knees touched the ground. The perfumed body attached to that arm twisted under him and drew him up into a hug.

"Stay with me, handsome," April's voice kissed his left ear. "I need you to walk with me. It's not very far. Can you do that for me? Cause, I can't carry you and we'll draw every THRUSH agent's attention with the sight if I try."

Pulling back enough to see, April earnestly searched Illya's face for recognition of what she'd said and smiled softly when he stopped mumbling and nodded abruptly.

"Good, now let's get you to Waverly." April jerked her head to Mark and they both led their fellow Section Two agents to their waiting boss.

MFU/MFU

As the foursome made it to the mobile command center where Waverly waited, the old man turned and noticed that his top two agents were at least standing. He grimaced and then gave a slight sigh of relief as he signaled for Slate and Dancer to smuggle his missing men to the UNCLE offices in Munich before his counter-part in THRUSH could notice.

"Alexander?" A retrained voice echoed behind him. "I must be seeing things, because I think I just saw Mr. Kuryakin and Mr. Solo being escorted to an UNCLE vehicle. I was given to understand that Russian bastard was mine to have…"

"It was only a possibility, Sven," Waverly admitted curtly with the raise of a bushy eyebrow and stern eye. "But, I only agreed to discuss it, so you wouldn't take innocent lives over the code key he intercepted." He eyed his pipe appraisingly. "Has anyone reported finding your Mr. Delgado yet?"

"No," Sven grumbled angrily. Van der Meer knew that Waverly had ordered Kuryakin to take out his munitions stock-pile in Geneva and resented being ordered to work with the man. "And you're trying to change the subject…"

"I think we've discussed it quite sufficiently," Waverly said with a sharp stare that would cut most men in half.

"I'm not one of you subordinates, Alex," Van der Meer huffed. "As soon as our agreement is concluded, all bets are off, and you and yours had best get as far from me and mine as possible."

"Your petty vengeance over your munitions or your brother's death or whatever it is, is not THRUSH Central's concern and you know it." Waverly reminded the upset man. "Both THRUSH and UNCLE must deal with a new faction in our 'little spy game' as you call it, Sven."

"I'm not finished with Kuryakin yet, but yes, this new threat to THRUSH's plan to take over the world must be addressed. However, I would think UNCLE would be cheering them on, because you couldn't get the job done without our help."

Before Waverly could make a tart comment, a Section Three agent came up and whispered something in his ear. Waverly nodded and dismissed the man. Van der Meer waited calmly for the agent to leave before he jumped the dodgy old man.

"What did he say?" Sven asked impatiently.

"The fires from the explosions are put out and no sign of Mr. Delgado," Waverly said half-heartedly. "Most of the soldiers of the New World Order refuse to talk, but a few mentioned their female commanding officer, Col. Mortensen, by name and that a visitor, a Herr Doctor Ludwig Schmitt, had replaced the two murdered scientists…"

"Murdered by Kuryakin," Van der Meer ranted.

"No, murdered by their by their own superior officers according to those who talked." Waverly corrected the man with a piercing glance. "Mr. Delgado and Dr. Schmitt have yet to be found. I would think that this would be THRUSH's main concern at this time, it's ours. So far, it seems that all the experimental subjects have been taken to another location."

"You're right," Sven said through grinding teeth as he continued to simmer. "We have to focus on finding Mr. Delgado and this doctor…"

"Schmitt."

"Yes," the younger man dropped his shoulders slightly and then quickly recovered. "But, I want to debrief Solo and Kuryakin personally about what went on as soon as possible."

"At a place of our choosing, agreed," Waverly said quickly, thrusting out his hand to the frustrated THRUSH boss and grabbing his before another word was said. "Once they cleared medical, they can both give us their reports."

"You have one hour and then we'll meet again."

"Make it two hours and we meet in Munich." Waverly pressed.

"Deal." Sven bit back a rude remark and then turned to shout irate orders to his subordinates, ending his meeting with his crusty, old nemesis.

Waverly waited for a moment to watch the troublesome man rant and scream at his men, chuckled softly to himself, and then turned to bark out his own orders before leaving the clean up to his trusted Section Three agents.

He hadn't agreed with his Section One counterparts about working with THRUSH, but this New World Order was seen as a more immediate threat, one that must be destroyed before the "spy game" could go back to business as usual.

MFU/MFU

Illya swirled his glass of water absently as he watched his partner out of the corner of one his tired, blood shot eyes as his partner sit down gingerly beside him. He and Napoleon had been at almost continual meetings with the top THRUSH leader in Europe, Sven Van der Meer and Mr. Waverly for two days.

The only rest he had gotten was when he underwent surgery to remove the main component of the broken mind controlling VIRUS device (the electrodes snaking into his brain would have to wait for more competent surgery) and Waverly had endured his counter-part's accusations against UNCLE sufficiently to call for an overnight break to regroup. Now the top Section Two Northwest agents sat; in a secured apartment's kitchen next to their Munich headquarters.

What made things even more painful for Illya was trying to remain calm and professional when Van der Meer got into his face. He was still trying to recover his language skills and was struggling with the uncontrollable anger at the THRUSH leader's constant badgering. He would laugh, bait, and shout at the blond agent at every opportunity he could find. It took all of his control not to kill the man every time Van der Meer sneered at his answers.

"You're the lucky one, you know," Napoleon said as he groaned in mild discomfort. His skin was still raw from the "shower" the guards gave him from that fire hose.

"How is that?" Illya asked as he took a careful sip of the water, wishing that it was something stronger. "I am speaking English, right?" He still had occasional problems telling in which language he spoke.

"Yes," Napoleon smiled dryly. "While you were having that device thing-a-ma-jig removed, I got to sit on a very heated discussion between the Old Man and Van der Smear. Seems he's been walking on thin ice with THRUSH Central ever since this whole thing with the codebook or code or whatever it was it wasn't real…Well, the code was real, but the machine wasn't."

"_Ja, es ist eine…_"

"A decoy," Napoleon finished. "And let's keep it to English, okay? That's what you were trying to tell me that in the hideout."

Illya nodded, but didn't have the words or understanding why just the thought of that single word kept his mind from allowing itself to be locked up forever, alone inside his head. Everything that required careful planning and thinking were still muddled, but the instinct to survive and get the mission done were the overriding commands that saved him.

How could he articulate that to Napoleon? It all came out in a language that only he and one other person knew. Not just random words as an after effect from being shocked both by the taser his partner had and the devices' remote as the doctors in Medical explained, but in truth, each shock had cancelled the other one out.

"Well, that was just icing on the cake, so to speak." Napoleon lightly wrapped the table with his fist. "Now, all efforts to squeeze out anymore information from you and me are at an end and the attention of both agencies has turned primarily on finding this Dr. Schmitt fellow and our favorite THRUSH agent…"

"Mario Delgado," they said in unison with a knowing smile, no love loss there.

"So, why I am so lucky, as you put it?" Illya's eyebrows rose a little higher on his broad forehead.

"You," Napoleon said with renewed flourish. "Are lucky because you get to stay in these luxurious accommodations for the next three days so the doctors can exam you for any lasting effects of the injuries to that overly big noggin of yours, while I have to head back to New York to start the paperwork on this mess. Dr. Klein and his colleagues told Waverly that they would like you stick around here in Munich for a few more days. Some of wires from that implant were woven rather tightly around your spinal cord, although I said that was just you were wired badly to begin with…"

"I'll wrap a wire around your cord and then you can try having fun with your lady friends…" Illya grumbled unhappily at the thought of having to stay here in Germany much longer.

"Waverly thought you'd feel that way and very thoughtfully ordered you some physical therapy as suggested by some the medical staff because they've had to deal with you lately."

"What kind of physical therapy?" he asked suspiciously, eying his partner and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Oh, just a simple massage to help you relax…" Napoleon shrugged his shoulders while Illya's forehead wrinkled and his eyes threw daggers straight through to where his heart should be.

"No one is touching me." The statement came out as a feral growl.

"Now, that is very unprofessional of you, Agent Kuryakin," Napoleon said in his stern, Chief Enforcement Agent voice, but he couldn't really keep the amused look off his face. "This poor woman has been waiting outside our door to do her job and here you sit, threatening to do her bodily harm just for doing her job; which your employer has sanctioned and he is expecting to be done."

With his last statement, Solo jumped up from the table when he saw the younger agent's head drop to the table in resignation. "Just pay her off and be done with it. I'll even throw in a hefty tip." Illya murmured.

"Sorry pal, no can do." He chuckled softly, hoping that the lady behind the door hadn't left or heard too much of the conversation. "You'll just have to suffer through it."

"Then I want something strong than water Vodka!" A muffled voice rang out from Illya's folded arms.

"No alcohol either, doctor's orders… Now, sit up and be a good little spy," Napoleon scolded his friend, waving a stern finger at him only to get one not-so-nice one waved at him in return.

As the door opened to reveal the woman waiting patiently on the other side, Illya now realized why his partner was all smiles and in such a joyous mood of the petty tortures he was inflicting on him.

A pathetic, pale woman with mousey brown hair tied in a severe knot at the nape of her neck walked into the room. To the jet-setting Napoleon Solo, she had "typical "older German _hausfrau_" written all over her with plain features, a heavy unibrow and crooked, uneven teeth that stuck out over her bottom lip.

The woman shook hands firmly with Illya and began to ask simple questions in low, guttural German which he answered politely. She had led a hard life, making her way through life as best she could and he wasn't going to hold that against her. She kind of reminded him of some of the kitchen ladies in the Soviet Union's state-run schools of his youth. They appeared to be stern and unapproachable until you got under that hard shell and found the warm, loving person underneath.

Illya stood up to go into the bedroom to undressed and wrap in a sheet she offered to him. He wanted to get this over with and left alone for a while, but needed to say goodbye to Napoleon first.

"I'll see you back in New York, Napoleon. Tell Heather hi for me."

"How did you know?" A stunned Solo looked at his companion as he stood in the open door.

Illya shrugged. "Tomorrow is the fifteenth. Your standing date with Miss McNabb about the budget or did you forget?

"Not at all, I'll give her your love. And you enjoy your time with Attila the Hun in there." Napoleon jerked his head toward the bedroom. "See ya on the flip side and I want details…"

"Goodbye, Napoleon," Illya said firmly as he shut the door behind his friend, a funny smirk appearing in his weary face.

Turning back into to room, he walked past the woman, who was busy rummaging through her bag, and lifted his glass to fill it up with more boring water, only to pause when a strong hand caught his wrist. With the glass still in his hand, she filled it with some clear, liquid from an icy bottle that had appeared from her bag.

He smiled at the clink of bottle to the glass as he sat down, took the generous measure of liquid in one swift gulp, and then inhaled deeply; the familiar burn of ice-cold vodka ran down his throat and relief washed over him.

The lady set down the sweating bottle with a knowing smile on her face. Her graceful hand covered her mouth and with a small tug, she pulled out a set of false, jagged teeth and she dropped them into his empty glass. Her other hand pulled the single brow from her forehead; she turned it around, and placed it on the watching UNCLE agent's face like a mustache.

After a few slow tugs at the pins holding the stiff bun in place and a provocative unzip of the padded dress she wore, Illya sigh of relaxation was audible as the confining costume came off and a young beautiful woman emerged from it.

Illya hungrily took in the woman's transformation as he licked his dry lips.

"You got my call…" He whispered in their shared language.

"I thought I might be too late, but I see that things are all right now." She stepped closer and placed her hands on his face to stroke it.

"How did you know about?" Illya's arms encased the only other person who knew him better than his friend Napoleon and snuggled his face in her neck.

"Mr. Waverly warned Father about the possible new world threat and I happened to be in Kiev…" she said in a deep, rich voice into his ear.

They held each other close. Illya had forgotten how her voice affected him. "I have two days in Munich before my absence is noticed. The weather is fine and I have a small suite on Logan Street with a tub built for two. We will soak away all that ails you. I hear that you are to be commended for a job well done, but I can tell something is still bothering you."

"I didn't listen to my gut feeling about being watched…" She felt the ever-so-light release of tension in his shoulders.

"Well, I'm here to kick you in the ass…"

Illya stopped her by placing his demanding lips on hers. Their attraction was intense and burning. _"Nyet!_ You and I need to make up for lost time first and then we can go to your hotel, Lexi."

With renewed purpose in getting over the effects of his last mission, Illya easily picked up his long-time lover. She giggled as they continued to kiss, making their way to the bedroom where knew they didn't need words to communicate.


End file.
